BOOKSELLL 

79  MADISON  S 

A,."^  CHICAGO.^ 


PRINCETON,  N.  J. 


Presented   by~Y^v-(£,^  \  cX  < 


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« 


'CD\-\ 


BL  240  . 

S54  1875 

Shields, 

Charles 

W. 

1825- 

1904. 

Religion 

and  science 

in 

their  relation 

to 

RELIGION   AND   SCIENCE, 


RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE 


IN  THEIR  RELATION  TO 


PHILOSOPHY 


AN  ESSAY  ON  THE  PRESENT   STATE   OF  THE 
SCIENCES. 


Read  before  the  Philosophical  Society  of  Washington. 


CHARLES  W.  SHIELDS,  D.  D., 

PROFESSOR  OF   THE   HARMONY   OF   SCIENCE   AND   REVEALED   RELIGION, 
IN  PRINCETON   COLLEGE,    N.   J. 


NEW  YORK: 
SCRIBNER,  ARMSTRONG,  AND  COMPANY. 

1875. 


Entered,  according  to  Act  of  Congress]  in  the  year  1875,  by 

ScRiBNER,  Armstrong,  and  Company, 
In  the  Office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  at  Washington. 


RIVERSIDE,    CAMBRIDGE: 

STBREOTYPED     AND     PRINTED     BY 

H.    0.    UOUGUTON   AND   COMPANY. 


PREFATORY  NOTE. 


The  following  essay  was  prepared  originally  as  a  paper 
to  be  read  before  the  Philosophical  Society  of  Washington, 
under  the  title  of  "  The  Present  State  of  the  Sciences/' 
and  with  the  understanding  that  it  would  traverse  in  a  philo- 
sophical spirit  the  ground  occupied  by  the  recent  Address 
of  Dr.  Tyndall  to  the  British  Association  at  Belfast. 

Numerous  requests  for  it  in  a  more  permanent  form  hav- 
ing been  received  since  its  publication  by  the  "  New  York 
Tribune  "  for  November  the  7th  ult.,  the  author  has  taken 
the  opportunity  to  revise  it  and  insert  some  additional 
matter  which  could  not  be  brought  within  the  limits  of  the 
original  occasion.  No  attempt,  however,  has  been  made  to 
unfold  the  themes  presented,  as  it  is  his  hope  to  treat  of  them 
in  an  extended  work,  projected  since  the  year  1860,  and 
designed  to  exhibit  the  Harmony  of  Science  and  Revealed 
Religion  as  fundamental  and  preliminary  to  the  Final  Phi- 
losophy or  Theory  of  Perfectible  Science. 

Princeton  College,  February,  1875.  • 


PROCEEDINGS   OF    THE   PHILOSOPHICAL 
SOCIETY  OF  WASHINGTON. 


Prof.  Joseph  Henry,  LL.  D.,  President,  in  the  Chair. 

At  a  meeting  of  the  Philosophical  Society  of  Washing- 
ton, held  October  24th,  1874,  a  paper  was  read  by  the  Rev. 
Dr.  C.  W.  Shields  of  Princeton  College,  "  On  the  Present 
State  of  the  Sciences." 

On  motion  the  thanks  of  the  Society  were  presented  to 
Rev.  Dr.  Shields,  and  the  hope  was  expressed  that  his  essay 
might  be  widely  circulated.  —  Extract  from  the  3finutes. 

J.  H.  C.  Coffin,  Secretary. 


THE   PRESENT   STATE   OF   THE 
SCIENCES. 


It  should  be  premised  that  this  essay  will 
embrace  but  a  small  part  of  an  immense  field. 
It  can  claim  to  be  nothing  more  than  a  mere 
glimpse  of  the  existing  state  of  the  sciences 
from  a  philosophical  point  of  vicAV,  and  will 
simply  aim  to  bring  forward  certain  general 
principles  which  are  believed  to  be  already 
latent  in  many  thoughtful  minds  and  of  special 
interest  at  the  present  thne. 

On  a  careful  review  of  the  history  of  the 
sciences,  it  could  be  shown  that  each  of  them, 
since  the  Reformation,  has  broken  into  two 
sections,  the  one  mainly  scientific  and  the  other 
largely  religious,  and  that  these  two  sections, 
in  parting  from  each  other,  have  proceeded 
through  three  distinct  stages,  more  or  less  suc- 
cessive and  chronological.  The  first  might  be 
termed  a  stage  of  healthful  separation  and  prog- 
ress, marked  by  ascertained  facts  and  truths ; 
the  second,  a  stage  of  mutual  avoidance,  filled 


/ 


8       THE  PRESENT  STATE   OF   THE   SCIENCES. 

]  with  various  hypotheses  and  dogmas ;  and  the 
third,  a  stage  of  open  rupture,  issuing  in  an- 
tagonistic speculations  and  creeds.  It  would 
be  interesting  to  test  this  generalization  by 
tracino;  the  sciences  from  one  stao-e  to  another 
during  the  last  three  centuries,  together  with 
the  discoveries,  opinions,  and  controversies 
which  have  marked  their  career.  Indeed  it  is 
plain  that  without  some  such  review  of  the 
past  growth  of  knowledge,  we  can  neither  un- 
derstand its  present  state  nor  forecast  its  future 
progress.  The  history  of  the  sciences  can  alone 
lead  us  to  what  Whewell  and  Comte  have  termed 
their  philosophy  —  that  Science  of  the  Sciences 
>  '  which  the  sciences  themselves  must  yield  as 
their  last  and  noblest  fruitage.  On  this  occa- 
sion, however,  some  acquaintance  with  such 
history  may  be  assumed,  and  it  will  be  enough 
to  present  the  results  which  have  been  draAvn 
from  it,  and  leave  them  to  stand  upon  their 
own  evidence. 

Let  us  define  the  field  before  us.  Leavino^ 
out  of  view  those  portions  of  knowledge  which 
have  attained  to  scientific  certainty  and  are  no 
longer  in  debate,  those  discovered  facts  and 
laws  which  alone  make  positive  science,  we 
shall  find  remaining  to  be  considered  a  mass  of 
unsolved  problems,  mostly  questions  of  origin 
and  destiny,  which  are  growing  more  complex 
every  hour,  and  before  which  the  religious  and 


THE  PRESENT  STATE   OF  THE   SCIENCES.      9 

scientific  champions  of  our  day  are  now  cross- 
ing lances,  like  the  two  knights  before  the 
mystic  shield,  with  their  respective  dogmas  and 
hypotheses  in  a  more  or  less  contradictory  state. 
It  will  be  our  first  task  to  survey  the  opposite 
sides  or  phases  of  these  questions  as  expressed 
in  such  dogmas  and  hypotheses,  from  an  inde- 
pendent point  of  view,  in  a  strictly  philosophi- 
cal mood,  with  an  effort  to  do  each  of  them  the 
utmost  justice.  We  shall  then  have  the  ma- 
terials for  a  full  and  fair  decision. 

ASTKONOMICAL    PROBLEMS. 

Astronomy  —  to  begin  with  the  oldest  of  the 
concrete  sciences  —  still  offers  to  the  two  parties 
that  ever  present  problem  which  has  tasked  our 
race  for  thousands  of  years,  the  origin  of  the 
heavens,  the  production  of  those  mysterious 
bodies,  the  sun,  planets,  and  satellites,  the 
stars,  galaxies,  and  nebulas  which  fill  the  im- 
mensity of  space  around  us.  On  the  one  side 
of  this  question  we  have  the  hypothesis  of  uni- 
versal evolution,  of  the  spontaneous  growth  of 
worlds  out  of  crude  matter  by  means  of  its  own 
laws  from  an  indefinite  antiquity  and  immen- 
sity ;  in  a  word,  the  rise  of  the  present  cosmos 
from  a  former  chaos.  It  is  an  hypothesis  as  old 
as  the  days  of  Leucippus,  Democritus,  and  Epi- 
curus, who  held  that  the  original  atoms,  strug- 
gling together  throughout  space  and  time,  have 


10    THE  PRESENT  STATE   OF   THE   SCIENCES. 

at  last,  after  infinite  trials,  brought  forth  the 
existing  worlds  as  the  fittest  to  survive  their 
mazy  conflict.  And  though  it  slumbered  dur- 
ing the  early  and  middle  ages,  until  it  was  re- 
vived by  Bruno,  Gassendi,  and  others,  in  the 
seventeenth  century,  it  has  since  come  forth 
again  with  renewed  vigor  and  in  still  more 
scientific  forms.  Descartes  led  the  way,  de- 
voutly assuring  the  Sorbonne  that  the  worlds 
were  no  doubt  created  perfect,  while,  never- 
theless, he  would  show  how  they  might  have 
arisen  on  mechanical  principles  from  certain 
vortices  or  vast  eddies  of  different  matter  form- 
ing and  whirling  the  sun  and  planets  like  boats 
in  a  maelstrom.  Leibnitz,  in  place  of  the  vor- 
tices, put  the  monads  or  living  atoms  acting 
and  reacting  under  preestablished  harmonies 
until  they  evolved  the.  present  solar  system  as 
the  best  possible  world.  Immanuel  Kant,  ap- 
plying the  physics  of  Newton,  sketched  a 
natural  history  of  the  celestial  bodies  as  at 
first  massed  out  of  a  stormy  chaos  of  attractive 
and  repulsive  particles,  tlien  formed  into  re- 
volving globes,  and  finally  poised  in  the  equi- 
librium of  the  planetary  forces.  Laplace  at 
length  completed  such  views  with  his  magnifi- 
cent postulate  of  a  primitive  nebula,  or  uni- 
versal fire-mist,  eddying  into  a  central  igneous 
body  like  the  sun,  breaking  into  rotating  rings 
such   as  those   of  Saturn,  cooling   into   cloudy 


THE  PRESENT  STATE    OF   THE   SCIENCES.    11 

and  watery  spheres  such  as  Jupiter  and  Nep- 
tune, and  at  last  hardening  into  solid  shells 
such  as  that  which  incrusts  the  fiery  core  of 
our  earth.  The  elder  Herschel  pushed  this 
sublime  speculation  with  the  telescope  beyond 
our  solar  firmament  into  the  sidereal  heavens, 
where  he  detected,  as  he  supposed,  vast  nebu- 
lous masses  with  lucid  points  glittering  as  the 
nuclei  of  new  worlds,  or  rather  of  ancient 
worlds  so  remote  that  ages  must  yet  pass  ere 
the  tardy  light  can  paint  their  finished  form  in 
the  eye  of  man.  Humboldt,  in  view  of  such 
researches,  grandly  described  the  whole  celes- 
tial spectacle  as  only  in  appearance  simultane- 
ous, having  beyond  it  an  endless  perspective  of 
stars  and  galaxies  too  distant  to  be  portrayed 
as  yet  in  other  than  their  embryo  stages,  as 
mere  films  and  dots  of  light.  Other  authori- 
ties still  living  might  be  cited  who  hold  or 
use  the  same  hypothesis,  and  it  is  now  claimed 
that  the  spectroscope  has  raised  it  to  the  rank 
of  a  theory  by  exhibiting  in  the  chemical  con- 
stitution of  difierent  stars  all  the  successive 
phases  of  cosmic  growth,  nebula,  sun,  and 
planet,  as  plainly  bursting  into  life  throughout 
the  heavens,  as  the  germ,  leaf,  and  flower  at 
our  feet. 

On  the  other  side  of  the  question  we  have 
the  doo^ma  of  immediate  creation,  of  an  in- 
stantaneous  startino;  forth  of  the  heavens  and 


12    THE   PRESENT  STATE   OF   THE   SCIENCES. 

earth  from  nothing  in  their  present  form,  at 
the  mere  word  of  Jehovah,  It  is  a  dogma 
which  claims  to  be  as  old  as  the  Hebrew  and 
Christian  Scriptures,  and  in  various  terms  has 
been  formulated  and  handed  down  to  us  by  the 
rabbis,  the  fathers,  the  schoolmen,  the  reform- 
ers, and  the  divines  of  the  following  age.  Philo, 
the  Platonic  Jew,  in  agreement  with  the  Mac- 
cabees, held  that  the  worlds  were  not  formed 
from  anything  preexistent,  but  spoken  into 
being  from  nothing.  Clement  of  Alexandria, 
in  opposition  to  the  Epicureans,  delighted  to 
represent  the  creation  of  the  universe  as  a 
voluntary  act  of  Divine  love.  Augustine  more 
precisely  taught  that  the  Deity  fashioned  the 
heavens  and  earth  not  out  of  matter,  nor  yet 
out  of  himself,  but  out  of  nothing,  by  an  in- 
staneous  exertion  of  His  own  free  will.  Aquinas 
followed  with  the  scholastic  distinction  that 
God  from  eternity  willed  that  the  world  should 
be,  and  not  that  the  world  should  be  from 
eternity  —  that  He  created  with  it  both  space 
and  time,  and  that  He  was  the  author  of  matter 
rather  than  its  mere  former.  Melancthon,  in 
contrast  with  the  Stoical  notion  of  eternal 
matter,  designated  the  creative  act  as  a  simple 
fiat,  commanding  things  to  be  which  had  not 
been  before.  Calvin  stigmatized  as  a  profane 
jeer  the  inquiry  why  the  heavens  and  earth 
should  have  been  created  only  six  thousand 


THE  PRESENT  STATE   OF   THE   SCIENCES.    13 

years  ago,  after  so  many  idle  ages  had  rolled 
away  and  with  so  much  vacant  space  left  run- 
ning to  waste.  The  great  body  of  living  di- 
vines following  these  different  authorities  in 
the  Jewish,  Greek,  Roman  Catholic,  and  Prot- 
estant Churches,  still  teach  or  confess  the  same 
dogma,  and  at  this  hour,  while  the  telescope 
and  spectroscope  are  disclosing  unnumbered 
worlds  throughout  infinite  space  and  time,  it 
stands  defined  in  the  same  terms  as  when  the 
heavens  were  but  admired  as  a  blue  canopy  or 
a  spangled  vault. 

Let  it  here  be  noted,  once  for  all,  that  the 
hypotheses  and  dogmas  which  are  held  respect- 
ing scientific  questions  are  now  coming  before 
us  in  their  pure  and  simple  form,  without  any 
admixture  with  each  other,  and  as  enunciated 
by  the  highest  authorities.  Among  astronomers, 
as  well  as  divines,  it  need  scarcely  be  said,  may 
be  found  many,  such  as  the  elder  Herschel  and 
Stephen  Alexander,  who  seek  to  blend  the 
theory  of  evolution  with  the  doctrine  of  crea- 
tion in  their  cosmogonic  speculations,  as  well  as 
some,  such  as  Laplace  and  Humboldt,  who 
would  put  them  apart  or  at  variance ;  but  such 
classes  do  not  now  come  within  this  survey. 

Besides  the  origin  of  the  heavens,  the  ques- 
tion of  their  destiny,  so  long  a  mere  theme  of 
devout  fancy,  is  becoming  also  a  problem  of 
exact  science.     It  was  taught  by  all  the  great 


/ 


14     THE  PRESENT  STATE  OF  THE  SCIENCES. 

doctors,  poets,  and  artists,  from  the  days  of 
Clement,  Bernard,  and  Michael  Angelo,  that 
the  whole  existing  firmament  might  at  any  mo- 
ment be  destroyed  and  renewed  by  the  flames 
of  a  general  conflagration  in  order  to  become 
the  pure  abode  of  saints  and  angels ;  and  even 
since  the  rise  of  astronomical  conceptions,  the 
comet,  the  meteor,  and  the  aurora  have  ever 
and  anon  been  hailed  as  portents  of  judgment 
and  signs  of  the  approaching  kingdom  of  heav- 
en. But  we  are  now  assured,  on  the  authority 
of  leading  physicists,  such  as  Grove,  Helm- 
holtz,  and  Tyndal,  that  so  far  as  science  can 
yet  foresee,  the  advancing  evplution  can  only 
issue  in  gradual  dissolution ;  that  the  potential 
forces  of  heat,  light,  and  life,  which  have  been 
stored  from  the  primitive  nebula,  or  from  sur- 
rounding meteors  in  star,  sun,  and  planet,  as 
the  ages  roll  on,  will  inevitably  be  spent,  and 
the  whole  machinery  of  the  heavens  fall  back 
into  ruins;  that  already  the  moon  is  but  a 
charred  cinder  of  the  earth,  the  earth  a  cool- 
ing ember  of  the  sun,  the  sun  a  blazing  frag- 
ment of  the  stars,  the  stars  themselves  but 
dying  suns,  and  all  their  galaxies  doomed  to 
pale  and  wane  into  universal  night  and  death. 

The  design  of  the  heavens,  the  habitability 
of  other  worlds  and  their  mutual  relations,  the 
possibility  of  life  and  "intelligence  throughout 
the  universe,  are   also   emerging    questions  of 


THE  PRESENT  STATE   OF   THE  SCIENCES.    15 

like  double  import.  While  the  one  party,  from 
Dionysius  and  Gregory  to  Chalmers,  have  im- 
agined an  ascending  hierarchy  of  angels,  prin- 
cipalities, and  powers,  rank  above  rank,  through 
the  heaven  of  heavens  toward  the  throne  of 
Jehovah ;  the  other  party,  from  Plutarch  and 
Gah'leo  to  Whewell,  can  discern  in  the  stars, 
sun,  and  planets  only  so  many  globes  of  fire, 
vapor,  and  slag,  wholly  incapable  of  sustaining 
life  and  reason,  and  as  destitute  of  any  intelli- 
gible purpose  as  the  crystals  that  sparkle  or 
the  flowers  that  bloom  where  no  eye  can  ever 
see  them. 

And  the  concluding  question  as  to  the  goal 
or  aim  of  the  whole  cosmic  process  has  at 
length  issued  in  the  extreme  opinions  of  Jona- 
than Edwards  and  Herbert  Spencer ;  on  the  one 
hand  that  of  a  miraculous  creation  and  regene- 
ration of  the  heavens  and  earth  at  fixed  epochs 
for  the  good  of  creatures  and  the  glory  of  their 
Creator  ;  on  the  other  hand,  that  of  a  rhythmic 
ebb  and  flow  of  ever  persistent  force  from 
nebula  to  planet  and  planet  to  nebula,  from 
chaos  to  cosmos  and  cosmos  to  chaos,  through 
endless  cycles  of  evolving  and  dissolving  worlds, 
amid  which  man  sports  upon  the  earth,  as  the 
merest  animalcule  of  a  bubble  that  flashes  in 
the  sunshine. 


16  THE  PRESENT  STATE   OF   THE   SCIENCES. 


GEOLOGICAL  PROBLEMS. 

Geology  next  meets  us  with  problems  scarce- 
ly less  grand  and  even  more  interesting,  such 
as  the  origin  of  our  own  planet,  the  formation 
of  the  rocky  layers  which  inclose  its  hidden 
contents,  and  the  growth  of  the  fossil  plants  and 
animals  which  are  found  buried  in  its  crust. 
On  the  one  side  of  the  question  is  the  hypothe- 
sis of  secular  evolution,  of  a  slow  unfolding  of 
the  globe  from  a  chaotic  mass  into  its  organ- 
ized form  through  the  action  of  existing  causes 
during  indefinite  time.  If  any  germs  of  such 
an  hypothesis  can  be  traced  in  the  mundane 
egg  of  Orpheus  and  Aristophanes,  the  prim- 
itive water  and  fire  of  Thales  and  Heraclitus, 
and  the  speculations  of  Strabo  upon  floods 
and  volcanoes,  they  remained  ^buried  under 
dogmatic  traditions  during  the  Middle  Ages 
until  they  were  again  brought  forth  by  the 
early  Italian  geologists,  as  Lyell  has  shown, 
and  at  length  cast  into  a  more  scientific  shape. 
Leibnitz,  without  calling  in  question  the  Mosaic 
cosmogony,  postulated  for  his  "  protogea "  or 
primitive  earth,  a  sort  of  extinguished  sun, 
slowly  cooling  through  fire  and  vapor  into  the 
clouds,  seas,  lands,  and  strata  of  our  present 
globe.  Buffon,  at  the  request  of  the  Theologi- 
cal Faculty,  recanted  a  similar  "  Theory  of  the 
Earth,"  in  which  he  had  fancied  the  planets  as 


THE  PRESENT  STATE   OF   THE   SCIENCES.    17 

ancient  fragments  of  the  sun,  struck  off  by  a 
comet  and  left  freezing  as  they  whirled  in  their 
orbits  ;  our  earth  at  this  date  still  retaining  the 
volcanic  nucleus  and  universal  ocean  by  whose 
joint  action  its  seas  and  continents  are  formed. 
Werner  and  Hutton,  as  founders  of  the  rival 
schools  of  Neptunists  and  Yulcanists,  at  length 
traced  the  aqueous  and  igneous  strata  to  the 
same  causes  which  are  still  producing  alluvium 
and  lava,  though  at  a  rate  that  would  require 
an  immeasurable  past.  Lamarck  and  St.  Hi- 
laire  broached  theories  of  transmutation  serv- 
ing to  blend  together  through  long  epochs  the 
fossil  and  living  species  which  Cuvier  would 
have  broken  apart  with  his  successive  deluges. 
Herschel  and  Poisson,  in  like  manner,  sought 
to  transform  ancient  into  modern  climates  by 
means  of  celestial  causes  of  inconceivable  slow- 
ness, such  as  a  swaying  of  the  earth's  orbit  and 
poles  in  the  solar  rays,  a  fluctuation  of  heat 
and  light  in  the  sun  itself,  and  even  radiation 
among  the  stars.  Babbage  and  Lyell  traced 
the  secular  changes  of  climate  and  species  to 
more  terrestrial  causes,  such  as  the  decline  of 
the  earth's  primitive  heat  and  the  gradual  shift- 
ing of  the  continents  by  the  action  of  its  crust. 
Humboldt,  bringing  these  facts  together  in  one 
comprehensive  review,  has  sketched  the  pro- 
gressive stages  of  our  planet  as  at  first  a  fiery 
ring  cast  off  from  the  nebulous  sun,  then  an 


18    THE  PRESENT  STATE   OF   THE   SCIENCES. 

incandescent  sphere,  and  at  length  a  granite 
shell  sustaining  between  the  central  fire  and 
solar  heat  the  successive  kino-doms  of  orscanic 
life  which  for  unknown  ages  have  flourished 
upon  its  surface.  Most  living  geologists  and 
palasontologists  seem  to  proceed  upon  some 
such  hvpothesis ;  and  by  the  advanced  party, 
according  to  Professor  Huxley,  it  is  held  to  be 
not  unlikely  that  the  wdiole  development  of  the 
globe  through  all  its  eras  and  phases  may  yet 
be  as  plainly  traced  as  the  growth  of  a  fowl 
within  the  egg. 

On  the  other  side  of  the  same  question  is  the 
dogma  of  successive  creations,  of  Almighty 
fiats  calling  into  being  one  after  another, 
land  and  sea  and  sky,  reptiles,  plants,  and  ani- 
mals, in  six  days  of  twentj^-four  hours,  a  few 
thousand  years  ago.  Although  derived  from 
the  Mosaic  Genesis,  it  is  a  dogma  wdiich  has 
varied  its  terms  with  each  age  of  the  Church. 
The  early  fathers,  Clement  and  Origen,  treated 
the  six  days  as  sacred  allegories  rather  than 
literal  epochs.  The  later  fathers,  Athanasius 
and  Augustine,  termed  them  the  mere  timeless 
acts  of  an  instantaneous  creation,  successive  only 
in  our  thought,  and  figuratively  represented  to 
us  as  working  days  measured  by- sunrise  and 
sunset.  The  schoolmen,  Hugh  of  St.  Victor 
and  Peter  Lombard,  defined  them  as  miraculous 
works  which  might  indeed  have  been  performed 


THE  PRESENT  STATE   OF   THE   SCIENCES.    19 

all  at  once  as  the  fathers  taught,  but  in  fact 
were  produced  successively  in  six  literal  days 
as  religious  lessons  of  the  Creator  to  his  crea- 
tures. The  Westminster  divines  also  held  them 
to  be  periods  of  twenty-four  hours,  and  found 
their  rationale  in  the  seven-fold  division  of  time 
in  six  days  of  work  with  one  of  worship.  Fran- 
cis Turretine  argued  that  each  day's  work  was 
produced  instantaneously  by  a  single  fiat,  plants 
and  animals  starting  forth  in  a  mature  state 
and  therefore  in  the  autumn  of  the  year.  Arch- 
bishop Usher,  by  act  of  Parliament,  fixed  the 
date  of  Creation  on  the  25th  of  October,  4004, 
B.  c.  The  learned  Dr.  Gill  particularized  the 
name  as  well  as  date  of  each  creative  day  from 
Monday  morning  to  Saturday  night.  Living 
divines  who  still  follow  these  different  authori- 
ties have  as  yet  made  no  new  definitions  of 
the  dogma,  and  for  anything  that  appears  in 
our  existing  creeds,  the  interminable  strata, 
floras,  and  faunas  which  geologists  have  been 
unfolding,  are  still  to  be  viewed  as  only  so 
many  didactic  miracles  wrought  in  a  single 
week. 

As  before  indicated,  it  would  not  fall  within 
the  scope  of  this  survey  to  notice  the  more 
scientific  attempts  of  Hugh  Miller  and  Guyot 
to  expand  still  further  the  Mosaic  days  into 
vast  creative  epochs  or  cosmogonic  eras;  nor 
yet   the   less   dogmatic   efforts  of  Strauss  and 


20    THE  PRESENT  STATE   OF   THE   SCIENCES. 

Baden  Powell  to  resolve  them  into  a  philo- 
sophic myth  or  poem. 

The  destiny  of  the  globe  is  also  becoming  a 
scientific  as  well  as  a  religious  question.  It 
formed  part  of  the  ancient  faith  as  matured  by 
Augustine  and  Aquinas  and  depicted  in  the 
sacred  arts,  that  our  earth,  having  once  been 
cleansed  by  water  for  the  sin  of  man,  would 
yet  be  purged  by  fire  for  his  redemption,  at  a 
given  signal  when  the  Purgatory  beneath  it 
would  send  forth  its  flames.  And  even  some 
of  the  early  geologists,  such  as  Hooke  and  Ray, 
looked  upon  the  earthquake  and  the  volcano  as 
agents,  no  less  than  presages,  of  such  a  catas- 
trophe. But  we  are  now  told  in  accordance 
with  the  views  of  Fourier,  Thompson,  and 
Mayer,  that  the  earth  is  already  oxidated  or 
burnt  through  its  crust  halfway  to  the  core ; 
that  it  has  grown  so  cool  in  the  course  of  ages 
that  it  could  not  now  melt  a  layer  of  ice  ten  feet 
thick  in  one  hundred  years ;  and  that  the  lunar 
tides  which  act  as  brakes  upon  the  rotatory 
motion  imparted  by  its  primordial  heat  must  in 
time  cause  it  to  spin  more  slowly  and  feebl}^, 
until  at  length  it  shall  flutter  upon  its  axis  as  a 
dead  world  like  the  moon,  ever  turning  the 
same  pallid  face  to  the  sun. 

And  the  remaining  question  as  to  the  end  or 
scope  of  the  whole  terrestrial  development,  at 
length  lands  us  between  the  contrasted  views 


THE  PRESENT  STATE   OF   THE   SCIENCES.    21 

of  Burnet  and  Lyell ;  on  the  one  side  that  of  a 
miraculous  deluge  and  conflagration  of  the 
earth  between  the  epochs  of  creation  and  judg- 
ment, for  the  sake  of  man  alone ;  and  on  the 
other  side  that  of  vast  periodic  changes  of 
climate  and  species  as  the  globe  heaves  and 
shifts  its  continents  and  seas  through  the  great 
year  of  the  zodiac,  or  nods  to  and  from  the 
sun,  crowned  with  verdure  and  capped  with 
snow  every  other  12,000  years,  or  mayhap 
journeys  with  the  sun  itself  among  the  stars 
18,000,000,000  years  through  a  sidereal  sum- 
mer and  winter,  between  which  our  whole 
historic  era  with  all  its  growing  annals  and 
splendid  works  shall  seem  transient  as  the 
hues  of  morning  or  the  flowers  of  spring. 

PROBLEMS    OF    ANTHROPOLOGY.  , 

Anthropology  at  this  point  comes  forward 
with  problems  still  more  complex  and  moment- 
ous, such  as  the  origin  of  our  race,  the  first 
appearance  of  man  upon  the  earth,  and  the 
mode  of  his  connection  with  the  organic  scale. 
On  the  one  side  of  the  question  rises  before  us 
the  hypothesis  of  derivative  evolution,  of  a 
gradual  growth  of  animal  into  human  species, 
under  organic  and  climatic  laws,  long  ages  ere 
history  was  born.  It  was  a  prevalent  opinion 
of  the  ancient  Greeks  and  Romans,  as  ex- 
pressed   by  Epicurus   and  Horace,  that  when 


22    THE  PRESENT  STATE   OF   THE   SCIENCES. 

the  animals  of  the  new  earth  at  first  crept 
forth  as  a  dumb  and  filthy  herd,  they  fought 
for  acorns  and  hidmg-places  with  their  fists, 
with  cudgels^  at  length  with  weapons;  that 
soon  they  invented  names  for  things  and  words 
for  their  thoughts,  and  finally  began  to  abstain 
from  war,  to  fortify  towns,  and  to  enact  laws. 
But  since  this  classic  myth  disappeared  from 
the  view  of  Western  Europe  before  the  tradi- 
tions of  the  Church,  it  has  only  been  by  suc- 
cessive conquests  over  physical,  and  religious 
antipathy,  that  the  grim  pleasantries  of  Mon- 
boddo  and  Samuel  Johnson  have  at  length 
passed  into  a  grave  controversy  of  science. 
De  Maillet,  vailing  his  ironical  purpose  in  a 
"  Dialogue  between  a  Christian  Missionary  and 
a  Heathen  Sage,"  opened  the  question  with 
glimpses  of  the  primitive  animals,  the  merman 
among  them,  rising  from  the  slime  of  the 
Deluge  and  becoming  in  the  course  of  genera- 
tions adapted  to  the  slowly  desiccated  earth. 
Lamarck  imagined  such  transmutations  to  have 
occurred  through  the  long  eras  and  stages  of 
an  organic  progression  by  the  instinctive  efforts 
of  animals  to  adjust  themselves  to  new  con- 
ditions, the  stranded  turtle  growing  into  the 
tortoise,  the  high-browsing  camel  into  the 
giraffe,  and  even  the  upright  orang  into  savage 
and  civihzed  man.  The  author  of  the  "  Vestiges 
of  Creation"  recalled  these  speculations  from  the 


THE  PRESENT  STATE   OF   THE   SCIENCES.    23 

obscurity  into  which  they  had  been  shaded  by 
the  great  name  of  Cuvier,  mainly  to  show  the 
need  of  some  higher  law  of  development  than 
the  mere  efforts  and  habits  of  animals  them- 
selves. Professor  Kichard  Owen  many  years 
ago  surmised  the  probable  action  of  a  physical 
law  by  which  nature  has  advanced,  with  slow 
and  stately  steps,  through  the  archetypal  light, 
from  the  earliest  vertebrate  in  the  fish,  to  the 
glorious  form  of  man.  Messrs.  Darwin,  Hook- 
er, and  Wallace  have  at  length  proposed  as 
such  a  law  for  the  vegetable  and  animal  world 
the  survival  of  the  best  or  fittest  breeds  in  the 
struggle  for  subsistence  which  is  ever  going  on 
among  the  teeming  populations  of  nature.  Mr. 
Darwin,  conjecturing  that  man  himself  may 
thus  have  fought  his  way  upward  from  the  in- 
ferior races,  has  been  collecting  the  inherited 
proofs  of  such  origin  from  his  embryonic 
stages,  his  rudimental  organs,  and  his  very 
physiognomy.  Professor  Huxley  has  suggested 
that  even  his  highest  faculties  of  feeling  and 
intellect  may  be  seen  germinating  in  some  of 
the  lower  species  with  which  he  is  most  nearly 
connected.  Professor  Haeckel  declares  that, 
in  the  course  of  his  organic  life,  from  the 
germ  to  the  grave,  he  epitomizes  all  the  suc- 
cessive types  of  the  palaeontological  scale. 
And  Sir  Charles  Lyell  already  looks  for  his 
pedigree  in  the  entombed  dynasties  of  nature 


24    THE  PRESENT  STATE   OF   THE   SCIENCES. 

among  such  typical  shapes  as  the  proudest 
nobles  still  blazon  for  their  crests.  It  is  fre- 
quently said  that  the  majority  of  living  nat- 
uralists accept  the  hypothesis  in  its  different 
forms,  or  at  least  the  principle  upon  which  it 
proceeds,  and  they  would  doubtless  agree  with 
a  saying  attributed  to  Schaaffhausen,  that  the 
secular  transformation  of  animal  into  human 
species,  if  onc^  proved,  could  be  no  more  mar- 
velous to  science  than  the  simplest  metamor- 
phosis of  an  Qgg  into  a  bird  or  of  a  child  into 
a  man. 

On  the  other  side  of  the  same  question  stands 
the  dogma  of  independent  creation,  of  an  im- 
mediate formation  of  man  out  of  the  ground, 
in  the  image  of  God,  on  the  sixth  day  of  the 
first  week  of  the  world.  It  has  come  down  to 
us  through  various  forms  of  statement,  from 
the  earliest  comments  on  the  writings  of  Moses. 
The  rabbins,  from  the  son  of  Sirach  to  Pliilo, 
delighted  to  depict  the  divine  image  in  Adam 
as  reflecting  every  conceivable  perfection  of 
body  and  mind.  The  fathers  Tertullian,  Chrys- 
ostom,  and  Augustine  discerned  it  in  his  godlike 
aspect  and  dominion,  in  his  intellectual  and 
moral  attributes,  and  in  a  miniature  trinity  of 
his  body,  soul,  and  spirit.  The  schoolmen,  St. 
Bernard,  Lombard,  and  Duns  Scotus  distin- 
guished it  into  that  intellectual  image  which 
even  in  Gehenna  cannot  be  consumed,  and  that 


THE  PRESENT  STATE   OF   THE    SCIENCES.    25 

moral  likeness  which  he  lost  by  the  fall.  The 
later  doctors  Bellarmin  and  Suarez  described 
such  moral  likeness  as  a  paradisaic  dowry  which 
he  had  forfeited,  a  virginal  wreath  of  which  he 
had  been  despoiled.  The  reformers  Luther  and 
Calvin,  the  Puritans  Owen  and  Edwards,  re- 
defined it  as  a  physical,  intellectual,  and  moral 
likeness  which  has  been  wholly  lost  or  marred, 
and  can  only  be  supernaturally  restored.  No 
existing  body  of  divines  has  since  thought  of 
retouching  these  ancient  symbols,  and  at  the 
present  moment,  while  anthropologists  on  all 
sides  are  mining  into  the  fossil  flora  and  fauna 
coeval  wdth  primitive  man,  our  reigning  dog- 
matic conceptions  are  still  as  crude  and  vague 
as  the  frescoes  of  Raphael  and  the  paradise  of 
Milton. 

It  will  be  observed  that  the  pre-Adamite  and 
co-Adamite  races  of  P^yrerius  and  Agassiz,  as 
well  as  the  pre-lapsarian  tribes  of  Buchner  and 
Vogt,  by  the  terms  of  our  survey,  are  alike 
excluded  from  view. 

The  development  of  mankind,  the  rise  of 
races,  languages,  and  arts  is  a  further  question 
which  science  beo;ins  to  share  with  reliorion.  It 
has  been  the  traditional  faith,  from  the  time  of 
Augustine,  that  the  human  species,  being  po- 
tentially folded  in  Adam,  fell  with  hhn  from 
Paradise,  became  whelmed  in  a  universal  flood, 
were    renewed   from    the    loins  of  Noah,  and 


26    THE  PRESENT  STATE   OF   THE   SCIENCES. 

afterward,  by  a  miraculous  confusion  of  lan- 
guage, dispersed  over  the  earth  into  nations  and 
tribes,  with  an  ever-lapsing  or  perverted  civili- 
zation. And  until  very  lately,  scientific  anthro- 
pologists were  retracing  all  existing  races  to 
Shem,  Ham,  and  Japhet;  all  living  dialects  to 
the  primitive  Hebrew,  and  all  remaining  mon- 
uments and  traditions  to  the  tower  of  Babel. 
But  we  are  now  threatened  with  a  total  revo- 
lution of  these  opinions.  Ethnologists,  such  as 
Agassiz,  Morton,  and  Owen,  have  been  group- 
ing mankind  into  indii>:enous  races,  throusrh  all 
the  hues  of  climate,  from  the  Ethiopian  sable 
to  the  rose  of  Circassia ;  grading  them  in  dis- 
tinct classes,  by  all  degrees  of  the  facial  angle, 
from  the  low  forehead  of  the  ape  to  the  vertical 
brow  of  the  Apollo ;  and  following  them  back- 
ward from  one  epoch  to  another  beyond  the 
time  of  Moses,  through  all  the  dynasties  of  the 
Pharaohs.  Philologists  such  as  Max  Milller, 
Whitney,  and  Schleicher,  have  been  unfolding 
human  speech  into  its  formative  stages,  the 
radical,  the  agglutinate,  the  amalgamate ;  tra- 
cing its  roots  to  imitative  sounds  or  natural 
cries,  and  even  expanding  its  growth  through 
long  eras  of  fossil  dialects,  rudimentary  letters, 
and  phonetic  types,  between  the  extremes  of 
animal  and  human  expression,  from  the  chatter 
of  an  Australian  forest  to  the  comedies  of 
Shakespeare  and  Moliere.    Archasologists,  such 


THE   PRESENT  STATE  OF   THE   SCIENCES.    27 

as  Lubbock,  Stevens,  and  Westropp,  have  been 
sketching  human  culture  through  its  pre-his- 
toric  ages  of  stone,  of  bronze,  and  of  iron, 
from  the  flint-chip  to  the  steam-engine,  from 
the  rude  cairn  to  the  marbles  of  the  Parthenon, 
and  exhibiting  the  savage  people^s  of  the  earth 
in  advancing  stages,  the  hunter,  the  herdsman, 
the  farmer,  during  long  epochs,  ere  civilization 
was  known.  And  archaeo-geologists,  so  called, 
such  as  Schmerling,  Lartet,  and  Lyell,  have 
been  restoring  the  flora  and  fauna  of  the  pre- 
historic periods,  the  beech  and  the  horse  of  the 
iron  age,  the  oak  and  the  goat  of  the  bronze 
age,  the  pine  and  the  reindeer  of  the  stone  age, 
the  bear  and  the  glacier  of  the  savage  epoch, 
until  at  last  they  have  carried  the  torch  into  a 
primeval  cavern,  in  search  of  mammoth  bones 
and  simian  skulls,  as  the  rude  birthplace  of 
civilized  man. 

And  the  concluding  question  as  to  the  des- 
tiny of  mankind,  the  aim  and  prospect  of  the 
whole  human  evolution,  at  length  opens  two 
opposite  views ;  on  the  one  side,  the  prediction 
of  a  regenerated  race  upon  the  scene  of  a  reno- 
vated earth,  with  the  wilderness  budding  as  a 
rose,  the  lion  transformed  into  a  lamb,  and  man 
again  an  innocent  child  of  paradise ;  and  on 
the  other  side,  the  prognosis  of  a  gradual  de- 
cline as  well  as  growth  of  humanity,  when  the 
noblest   races   shall   have   lost   their  ancestral 


28    THE  PRESENT  STATE  OF   THE   SCIENCES. 

vigor,  the  richest  tongues  their  classic  grace, 
the  finest  arts  their  pristine  purity  ;  when  even 
the  productive  stores  and  sustaining  powers 
of  nature  herself  shall  have  been  exhausted, 
and  the  lingering  plants,  animals,  and  effete 
tribes  of  men  shall  fade  away  like  the  leaves 
of  Autumn,  while  the  earth  veers  back  into 
her  glacial  epoch,  and  the  sun  can  no  longer 
vivify  the  nations  that  have  basked  in  his 
rays. 

PROBLEMS    IN    THE    PSYCHICAL    SCIENCES. 

Our  survey  has  now  brought  us  to  the  verge 
of  those  higher  psychical  sciences  which,  as 
they  include  the  nearest  human  interests,  are 
bristling  with  portentous  questions,  not  likely 
to  be  treated  in  that  passionless  mood  which 
belongs  to  scientific  inquiries,  and  yet  all  the 
more  imperiously  claiming  our  attention. 

Psychology  is  already  pressing  upon  us  such 
problems  as  the  origin,  the  development  and 
the  destiny  of  the  individual,  of  his  cognitions, 
his  emotions,  his  volitions,  and  is  presenting 
like  divergent  opinions ;  on  the  one  side  such 
recent  hypotheses  as  those  of  Herbert  Spencer, 
Maudsley,  and  Moleschott,  that  mind  is  a  prod- 
uct of  matter,  that  the  will  is  a  developed 
force  acting  under  laws,  and  that  death  is  the 
dissolution  of  that  matter,  the  conversion  of 
that   force ;    and  on  the  other  side,  such  tra- 


THE  PRESENT  STATE  OF    THE   SCIENCES.    29 

ditional  dogmas  as  those  of  Lactantius,  Au- 
gustine, and  Jerome,  that  the  soul  has  been 
created  in  the  body,  that  the  will  may  be  re- 
generated by  irresistible  grace,  and  that  the 
spirit  will  be  reclothed  hereafter  with  the 
whole  present  body.  And  while  some  psychol- 
ogists are  ready  to  retrace  the  devout  materi- 
alism of  Bonnet  and  Priestley,  others  are  but 
reverting  to  the  sensual  fatalism  of  La  Mettrie 
and  D'Holbach. 

Sociology  is  not  far  behind  with  such  prob- 
lems as  the  origin,  the  development,  and  the 
destiny  of  society,  of  its  arts,  its  sciences,  its 
polities ;  and  is  branching  with  a  similar  diver- 
gence of  views ;  on  the  one  side,  the  hypothe- 
ses of  such  civilians  as  Locke,  Yico,  and  Draper, 
that  the  state  is  a  social  contract ;  that  the  his- 
tory of  nations  proceeds  under  periodic  and 
progressive  laws,  and  that  societies,  like  indi- 
viduals, physiologically  viewed,  have  their  in- 
fancy, youth,  age,  and  decline,  are  born  but 
to  grow  and  die  ;  and  on  the  other  side,  the 
dogmas  of  such  ecclesiastics  as  Bellarmin,  Bos- 
suet,  and  Edwards,  that  the  church  is  an  abso- 
lute theocracy,  that  Providence  throughout 
history  has  been  a  systematic  judgment  of  the 
nations  on  behalf  of  the  church,  and  that  the 
nations  are  yet  to  be  subdued  by  the  miracu- 
lous return  and  reign  of  Christ.  And  if  some 
scientific   historians,  like  Buchez  and   Patrick 


30    THE  PRESENT  STATE   OF   THE   SCIENCES. 

Dove,  have  looked  for  their  ideal  society  in  the 
course  of  prophecy  and  Providence,  others, 
like  Condorcet  and  St.  Simon,  have  sought  it 
only  through  revolution  and  reform. 

Theology  also  is  emerging  with  new  prob- 
lems, such  as  the  origin,  the  development, 
and  the  destiny  of  religion,  of  its  traditions,  its 
creeds,  and  its  cults,  and  is  already  breaking 
into  hostile  camps;  on  the  one  side,  the  vo- 
taries of  mere  natural  religion,  such  as  Theo- 
dore Parker,  Max  MUller,  and  Comte,  holding 
that  there  is  one  essential  universal  faith  de- 
rived from  the  light  of  nature,  that  there  has 
been  a  scale  and  growth  of  religions  in  history 
through  degrees  of  relative  perfection,  and  that 
the  perfect  religion  of  the  future  will  consist  in 
the  deification  of  humanity,  the  w^orship  of  wom- 
anhood, and  the  hierarchy  of  science ;  and  on 
the  other  side,  the  disciples  of  revealed  religion, 
such  as  Leland,  Paley,  and  Chalmers,  maintain- 
ing that  a  revelation  of  religion  is  necessary  as 
well  as  important ;  that  there  has  been  a  primi- 
tive miraculous  revelation,  of  which  other  pre- 
tended revelations  are  but  corruptions  or  coun- 
terfeits, and  that  this  revealed  religion  is 
destined  to  prevail  over  all  other  religions  by 
supernatural  conversions  and  judgments  at  the 
end  of  the  present  dispensation.  And  though 
some  comparative  theologians,  such  as  Hard- 
wick  and  Edward  Spiess,  are  endeavoring  to 


THE   PRESENT  STATE    OF   THE   SCIENCES.    31 

recapitulate  the  world's  religions  in  Christian- 
ity, others,  such  as  Strauss  and  Feuerbach, 
have  striven  to  reduce  Christianity  itself  to 
mere  mythology  and  self-illusion. 

And  the  general  question  to  be  gathered 
from  all  the  psychical  sciences  at  length  pre- 
sents to  us  on  the  one  side  the  opinion  that  the 
regenerate  soul,  the  church,  and  the  coming 
millennium  are  parts  of  a  new  spiritual  system 
ensuing  upon  the  old  material  creation,  and  on 
the  other  side  the  conjecture  that  religion, 
science,  politics,  art,  all  were  once  potential  in 
the  flames  of  the  sun,  and  must  yet  revert  to 
the  fiery  cloud  from  whence  they  sprang. 

PROBLEMS    OF    METAPHYSICAL    SCIENCE. 

Behind  these  problems  of  the  physical  and 
psychical  sciences  are  others  still  more  recon- 
dite and  abstruse  —  the  metaphysical  questions 
as  to  the  essential  nature  of  mind  and  matter 
and  the  absolute  reality  before  and  beneath  all 
phenomena ;  questions  which  on  the  one  side 
have  at  length  issued  in  the  opinions  of  Her- 
bart,  Lotze,  and  Fechner  that  phenomena  both 
material  and  spiritual  are  the  expressions  of 
real  essences  or  conscious  monads,  or  self- 
manifesting  souls  ;  together  with  the  extreme 
speculations  of  Hegel,  Schopenhauer,  and  Hart- 
mann,  that  the  intelligible  universe  is  a  logical 
process  of  absolute  reason  and  thought,  or  a 


32    THE  PRESENT  STATE   OF   THE   SCIENCES. 

product  of  blind  primordial  force  and  human 
will,  or  a  historical  development  of  uncon- 
scious force  and  will  into  conscious  thought 
and  reason.  Questions  which,  on  the  other 
side,  have  scarcely  advanced  beyond  the  an- 
cient dogmas,  that  body  and  soul  are  created 
substances  co-acting  mechanically  as  instru- 
ments of  divine  foreordination,  and  that  there 
is  a  trinity  of  Father,  Son,  and  Spirit  in  the 
self-existent  Jehovah  manifested  to  us  through 
the  miracles  of  creation,  incarnation,  atone- 
ment, and  final  judgment. 

At  the  same  time,  as  the  issue  of  modern 
metaphysical  thought,  we  have  at  the  one  ex- 
treme an  optimism  which  seeks  to  identify  the 
revealed  Jehovah  as  the  one  Absolute  Reason, 
the  first  and  final  cause  of  a  perfected  crea- 
tion ;  and  at  the  other  extreme  a  pessimism 
which  would  exhibit  the  developing  universe 
as  an  abortive  paradox,  beginning  and  ending 
in  hopeless  contradiction. 

PROBLEMS    m   THE    SCIENCE    OF    SCIENCES. 

And  high  above  all  these  problems  in  the 
different  sciences,  we  may  now  behold  the  great 
summary  question  as  to  the  course  and  goal  of 
the  sciences  themselves,  as  to  their  logical  pro- 
cesses, their  historical  laws,  and  their  ultimate 
limits.  On  the  one  side  we  have  the  decisions 
of  Bacon,  D'Alembert,  Comte,  Mill,  and  Spen- 


THE  PRESENT  STATE    OF   THE  SCIENCES.    33 

cer,  that  positive  'science  is  restricted  to  facts 
and   their   laws  without   inquiring   into    their 
first  and  final  causes,  that  the  more  advanced 
sciences  have  historically  reached  this  positive 
state  only  by  excluding  all  inquiry  into  causes, 
and  thus  outgrowing  and  destroying  theology 
and  metaphysics,  and  that  their  final  goal  is 
sheer  nescience  or  the  recognition  of  an    un- 
knowable   reality  as  the  ground  of  all  know- 
able  phenomena.     On  the  other  side  we  have 
the  opinions  of  Tertullian,  Aquinas,  Calvin,  and 
Butler,  that  the  unknowable  to  man  is  revealed 
by  God  through  miraculously  attested  commu- 
nications, that  it  has  been  the  function  of  such 
revelation   to   remedy   human   ignorance   and 
expose   false    science,   and  that  ultimately  all 
earthly  science  for  the  individual  will  be  lost  in 
beatific  vision,  and  for  the  race  will  be  eclipsed 
by  the  millennial  light  of  a  new  apocalypse. 
And  it  remains  to  be  seen  whether,  in  the  true 
theory  of  science,  reason   is    to    progressively 
coincide  with  revelation,  or  revelation    to   be 
gradually  superseded  by  reason. 

Such  then  is  the  present  state  of  the  sciences. 
While  they  embrace  immense  bodies  of  exact 
knowledge,  too  vast  for  any  one  mind  to  master, 
too  magnificent  for  even  the  imagination  to  de- 
pict, they  also  present  a  bewildering  mass  of  un- 
solved problems  with  opposite  hypotheses  and 
dogmas  respecting  them  which  have  been  held 


34    THE  PRESENT  STATE   OF   THE  SCIENCES. 

by  the  master-spirits  of  former  times,  and 
which  still  engross  the  leading  intellects  of  our 
day.  Kenewing  the  remark  with  which  this 
paper  began,  that  the  aim  has  been  simply  to 
state  these  questions  with  all  fairness  and  not 
to  discuss  them,  I  shall  now  submit  some  de- 
ductions from  the  survey  which  seem  to  lie 
upon  the  surface  in  full  view  of  all  parties. 

PHILOSOPHICAL    NATURE    OF    THESE    PROBLEMS. 

In  the  first  place,  it  is  plain  that  these  ques- 
tions are  not  purely  scientific.  They  have  not 
been  so  treated  in  past  ages,  and  they  are  not 
so  treated  at  the  present  day.  No  competent 
scientific  authority  has  yet  pronounced  upon 
them.  The  French  Academy  has  not  decided 
them.  The  British  Association  has  not  decided 
them.  The  different  Italian,  German,  and 
American  associations  have  not  decided  them. 
There  is  not  even  any  spontaneous  concurrence 
of  scientific  men  respecting  them,  such  as  that 
which  attends  all  observed  facts,  ascertained 
laws,  and  proved  theories.  It  cannot  be  claimed 
that  the  great  names  in  science  have  ever  been 
or  are  now,  arrayed  against  the  religious  view 
of  them.  And  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that 
they  can  never  be  decided  by  any  merely 
scientific  process.  The  origin  and  destiny  of 
nebulae,  suns,  and  planets,  of  man  with  his  in- 
dividual, social,  and  religious  interests,  of  the 


THE  PRESENT  STATE   OF   THE   SCIENCES.    35 

universe  through  all  its  eras  and  phases,  are 
surely  problems  which  by  no  inductive  search 
among  existing  facts  and  laws,  can  be  fully 
brought  within  the  revision  and  prevision  of 
science,  but  must  sooner  or  later,  as  her  most 
loyal  votaries  are  now  confessing,  lead  her  to 
that  verge  of  the  knowable  where  her  torch 
becomes  quenched  in  the  Unknowable  and  she 
has  no  more  light  to  shed. 

In  the  second  place,  it  is  also  clear  that  these 
questions  are  not  merely  religious.  If  they 
were  so  treated  in  former  times,  they  are  not 
so  treated  to-day.  The  religious  authorities 
which  have  ventured  to  pronounce  upon  them 
have  not  settled  them.  The  Papal  Syllabus 
has  not  settled  them.  The  Evangelical  Alli- 
ance has  not  settled  them.  The  different  ec- 
clesiastical councils  have  not  settled  them. 
There  is  not  even  such  general  agreement  of 
religious  people  concerning  them  as  that  which 
belongs  to  the  chief  essentials  of  the  Christian 
faith.  It  cannot  be  held  that  the  great  names 
in  religion  have  always  been  or  are  now  joined 
together  against  the  scientific  view  of  them. 
And  it  is  safe  to  say  that  by  no  purely  religious 
method  can  they  ever  be  settled.  The  attempt 
of  all  churches  and  sects  combined,  through  any 
mere  grammatic  interpretation  of  the  Holy 
Scriptures,  under  pretense  of  infallible  guid- 
ance, and  in   contempt  of  all  other   means  of 


36    THE  PRESENT  STATE  OF   THE   SCIENCES. 

knowledge,  to  show  how  the  heavens  and  earth 
and  man  were  created  and  will  be  renewed, 
w^ould  simply  remand  religion  to  the  supersti- 
tion and  bigotry  of  the  dark  ages,  and  at 
length,  as  her  most  devout  disciples  will  admit, 
dim  her  light  at  the  very  points  where  it  should 
shine  most  brightly. 

In  the  third  place,  it  will  follow  that  these 
questions,  being  partly  scientific  and  partly  re- 
ligious, are  strictly  philosophical,  and  should 
be  so  treated  by  all  parties.  That  they  are 
partly  scientific  and  partly  religious  is  a  fact 
that  runs  through  all  the  past.  From  their 
very  origin  they  have  involved  both  elements. 
The  history  of  neither  could  be  written  without 
that  of  the  other.  The  successive  conflicts  and 
alliances  of  the  scientific  and  religious  classes 
at  the  great  epochs  of  civilization,  among  the 
Sophists,  among  the  Fathers,  among  the  School- 
men, among  the  Reformers,  have  been  the  very 
rythm  of  human  progress.  There  is  scarcely 
a  dogma  which  has  not  served  as  an  hypothesis 
in  science,  as  there  is  scarcely  an  hypothesis 
which  has  not  been  used  for  a  dogma  in  re- 
ligion. The  great  names  in  each,  or  at  least 
the  masters  in  both,  have  ever  striven  to  keep 
them  together  rather  than  to  drive  them  apart. 
Plato  and  Origen,  Augustine  and  Erigena,  Al- 
bertus  and  Roger  Bacon,  Francis  Bacon  and 
Butler,  from  age  to  age,  have  illustrated  their 


THE  PRESENT  STATE   OF   THE   SCIENCES.    37 

essential  oneness.  It  could  be  shown,  indeed, 
as  the  largest  minds  on  both  sides  have  long 
perceived,  that  their  own  peculiar  processes 
and  exigencies  soon  bring  them  face  to  face 
in  the  mutual  recognition  of  knowable  facts 
which  the  one  must  discover  and  of  unknow- 
able realities  which  the  other  must  reveal. 
And  the  common  ground  between  them,  formed 
by  their  intersection,  instead  of  narrowing  has 
been  enlarging  with  the  lapse  of  time  and 
the  growth  of  knowledge,  imtil  now  it  has 
become  not  merely  a  conspicuous  arena  in  the 
philosophical  world,  but  even  a  popular  sign  of 
the  times. 

PROFESSOR    TTNDALl's    ILLUSTRATION. 

Of  this  fact  there  could  scarcely  have  been 
a  more  striking  proof  than  the  recent  brilliant 
and  lucid  address  of  Professor  Tyndall  from 
the  chair  of  the  British  Association  —  an  ad- 
dress widely  and  justly  praised,  as  well  for 
the  graces  of  its  style  as  for  the  vigor,  acute- 
ness,  and  breadth  of  its  thought,  the  elevation, 
courage,  and  candor  of  its  tone.  That  the 
questions  which  it  broaches  could  be  so  dis- 
cussed and  received  in  a  scientific  body,  would 
be  a  full  vindication,  were  any  needed,  of  their 
fitness  to  such  occasions.  It  was  right  that 
they  should  be  taken  there,  and  it  is  right  that 
they  should  be  brought  here,  if  only  they  are 


38    THE  PB,ESENT  STATE   OF   THE   SCIENCES. 

held  under  the  dry  hght  of  pure  science,  within 
the  purview  of  philosophy.  How  to  adjust 
them  has  indeed  become  "  the  problem  of 
problems  at  the  present  hour  ;  "  and  that,  not 
merely  that  we  may  "  yield  reasonable  satisfac- 
tion to  a  religious  sentiment  in  the  emotional 
nature,"  for  with  this,  science  may  have  little 
to  do ;  but  also,  and  chiefly,  that  we  may  meet 
a  logical  demand  of  the  understanding,  a  crown- 
ing want  of  the  intellect  of  man. 

Perhaps  the  true  philosophical  nature  of  the 
problems  which  have  been  stated  could  not  be 
better  illustrated,  for  the  present  purpose  at 
least,  than  by  means  of  the  rhetorical  device 
so  skillfully  employed  in  that  paper.  A  dis- 
ciple of  Lucretius,  it  will  be  remembered,  is 
supposed  to  have  engaged  Bishop  Butler  in  an 
encounter  of  wits  over  one  of  the  chapters  in 
his  immortal  Analogy  ;  the  combatants  having 
been  armed  with  the  added  knowledge  of  our 
time,  like  Milton's  embattled  angels,  to  dare  an 
argument  of  mysteries.  It  is  easy  to  paint 
portraits  to  suit  ourselves  when  we  hold  the 
pencil,  and  there  is  always  some  risk  of  un- 
fairness in  speaking  for  another.  But  I  shall 
try  to  avoid  such  dangers  as  my  predecessor 
has  done,  by  simply  fancying  the  two  disputants 
to  reappear  before  us  at  the  point  which  their 
discussion  had  reached,  and  allowing  them  to 
proceed  with  it,  in  our  hearing,  a  step  further 


THE  PRESENT  STATE   OF   THE   SCIENCES.    39 

toward  its  logical  issue.  Let  the  Bishop  speak 
first,  and  the  disciple  of  Lucretius  shall  have 
the  last  word. 

"  Before  we  leave  this  subject  of  living 
agents,  most  noble  Lucretian,  I  beg  to  remind 
you  that  there  is  involved  in  it  a  very  interest- 
ing question  which  you  have  scarcely  touched 
upon.  You  will  remember  that  my  whole  ar- 
gument had  reference  not  so  much  to  the 
nature  of  the  living  agent  or  self,  as  to  its 
destiny.  I  was  trying  to  prove  inductively, 
from  observed  facts,  that  our  survival  after 
death  is  as  probable,  if  not  as  certain,  as  any 
other  scientific  prevision  attempted  under  like 
conditions.  Beginning  with  those  two  great 
presumptions  or  high  probabilities  upon  which 
all  positive  science  proceeds,  the  uniformity  and 
continuance  of  nature,  I  argued  that  we  shall 
continue  to  live  hereafter,  unless  it  be  imagined 
that  death,  of  which  we  know  nothing,  de- 
stroys us ;  and  against  this  mere  imaginary 
presumption  I  brought  forward  various  scien- 
tific presumptions  afforded  by  observation  and 
experience,  such  as  the  following :  That  if 
death  means,  as  you  affirm,  the  dissolution  of 
your  atoms,  then  your  essential  bulk  may  be 
such  that  you  cannot  be  dissolved,  like  that 
infinitesimal  germ  out  of  which  has  been  de- 
veloped your  whole  present  self,  together  with 


40    THE  PRESENT  STATE   OF   THE  SCIENCES. 

the  inherited  traits  of  your  ancestors  :  That 
already  most  of  your  atoms  have  been  dissolved 
and  replaced  every  seven,  ten,  or  twenty  years, 
not  merely  bones,  tissues,  nerves,  but  the  brain 
itself,  dying  a  thousand  deaths :  That  large 
portions  even  of  your  nervous  atoms  might  be 
dissolved  without  being  replaced  and  you  still 
be  conscious  of  your  phantom-limb,  or  go  on 
thinking  wdth  but  half  of  your  brain  :  That 
through  all  these  dissolutions,  that  hidden  self 
of  yours,  picture  it  as  you  will,  persists  and 
survives,  with  its  peculiar  powers  of  thought 
and  feeling,  whatever  they  may  be,  even  amid 
disease,  injury,  and  madness  itself:  That  after 
the  last  more  rapid  dissolution,  sooner  or  later, 
should  that  mysterious  consciousness,  of  which 
you  have  spoken  as  coming  and  going  so 
strangely,  be  recovered  in  some  new  ethereal 
organism  as  unlike  its  old  counterpart  as  that 
god-like  form  was  itself  unlike  its  earlier  icthyic 
germ,  or  as  the  brilliant  insect  is  unlike  its  off- 
cast larva,  some  spiritual  body,^  wholly  im- 
perceptible by  our  present  senses,  yet  itself 
gifted  with  more  than  microscopic  insight, 
locomotive  swiftness,  and  telegraphic  thought  — 
all  these  marvels  would  be  no  greater  than  are 
daily  passing  before  your  eyes :  That  though 
existing  plants  and  animals,  having  shown  no 
such  power  of  individual  progression,   should 

^  Carpenter's  Human  Physiology,  Art.  78. 


THE  PRESENT  STATE    OF   THE   SCIENCES.    41 

perish  with  their  species  and  be  replaced  by 
other  and  fitter  forms  in  that  second  state  into 
which  you  had  been  born  — 

"  '  With  all  the  ch'cle  of  the  wise, 
The  perfect  tlower  of  human  time,' 

yet  even  this  would  be  only  such  meet  survival 
as  now  separates  us  from  primeval  ferns  and 
dragons,  a  just  predominance  of  the  higher 
over  the  lower  forces  in  the  planetary  life,  a 
strictly  cosmic  birth,  as  free  from  miracle  or 
catastrophe  as  the  coming  of  an  infant  into  the 
world  or  the  transformation  of  the  earth  in 
spring  ;  in  a  word,  '  as  natural  as  the  visible 
known  course  of  things.'  ^ 

"  You  will  observe  that  this  is  a  mere  scientific 
hypothesis,  and  not  a  religious  dogma.  I  have 
carefully  excluded  from  it  any  theological, 
metaphysical,  or  even  ethical  opinions  which 
might  seem  to  prejudice  it  in  your  eyes.  You 
may  have  your, own  opinions  upon  such  points, 
and  the  argument  will  still  hold.  You  may 
picture  yourself  as  the  merest  combination  of 
atoms  that  the  materialist  can  conceive ;  but 
I  have  shown  you  that  the  dissolution  of  our 
gross  organized  bodies  '  would  not  be  our  de- 
struction, even  without  determining  whether 
our  living  substances  be  material  or  imma- 
terial.' You  may  imagine  that  combination 
of  your  atoms  to  have  been  as  fortuitous   as 

^  ^vAXox""?,  Analogy,  chap.  i. 


42    THE  PRESENT  STATE  OF   THE   SCIENCES. 

any  that  the  atheist  can  trace ;  but  ^  that  we 
are  to  live  hereafter  is  just  as  reconcilable  with 
the  scheme  of  atheism,  and  as  well  to  be  ac- 
counted for  by  it,  as  that  we  are  now  alive  is ; 
and  therefore  nothing  can  be  more  absurd  than 
to  argue,  from  that  scheme,  that  there  can  be 
no  future  state.'  You  may  even  discard  the 
moral  motives  of  such  a  state  for  any  humane 
virtues  that  the  secularist  can  practice,  as  '  if 
it  were  certain  that  our  future  interest  no  way 
depended  upon  our  present  behavior ; '  yet 
'  curiosity  could  not  but  sometimes  bring  a  sub- 
ject in  which  we  may  be  so  highly  interested 
to  our  thoughts,  especially  upon  the  mortality 
of  others  or  the  near  prospect  of  our  own  ; ' 
and  it  is  in  the  light  of  such  mere  curiosity,  as 
a  question  of.,  pure  science,  that  I  have  put 
it  before  you,  to  be  tested  as  coolly  as  you 
would  dissect  an  embryo  or  a  chrysalis.'* 

Lucretius,  if  history  speaks  truly,  was  not 
the  man  to  shirk  a  question  because  of  its  log- 
ical consequences,  and  we  can  fancy  without 
much  effort  what  sort  of  rejoinder  a  true  Lu- 
cretian  would  make  to  the  Bishop's  reasoning. 

''  I  have  listened,"  he  might  say,  "  to  your 
ingenious  argument  with  the  interest  of  a 
philosopher.  It  bears  upon  a  subject  which 
engrossed  some  of  the  finest  minds  of  Greece 
and  Kome,  from  Socrates  and  Plato  to  Cicero 


THE  PRESENT  STATE  OF   THE   SCIENCES.    43 

and  Seneca.  It  was  not,  you  are  aware,  the  doc- 
trine of  Epicurus,  nor  that  which  I  learned  from 
my  master.  He  taught  me  that  from  atoms  all 
things  have  come,  and  to  atoms  they  must  re- 
turn. Through  their  endless  compositions  and 
decompositions  the  forms  of  man,  beast,  bird, 
and  flower  appear  and  disappear,  come  and  go, 
and  are  seen  no  more.  Even  the  ethereal  and 
luminous  particles  of  the  soul  itself,  together 
with  the  grosser  body  through  which  they  are 
diffused,  must  scatter  and  vanish  like  down  be- 
fore the  wind.  Death  is  therefore  the  mere 
dissolution  of  certain  compounded  atoms  which 
thenceforth  can  serve  no  higher  purpose  than  to 
enrich  the  earth  and  nourish  plants  and  animals 
which  may  feed  other  generations  of  men. 

"And  this  theory  he  framed* into  eloquent 
verse,  as  I  have  told  you,  for  the  very  purpose 
of  counteracting  certain  dogmas  which  domi- 
nated in  his  time.  He  saw  men  everywhere 
terrified  with  omens  and  disasters,  which  they 
attributed  to  the  anger  of  the  gods,  and  in 
order  to  dispel  their  fears,  depicted  those  ideal 
beings  in  a  remote  heaven  of  apathy,  sublimely 
indifferent  to  mortals,  while  nature  moved  on 
beneath,  with  her  measureless  surges  of  atoms, 
majestically  as  the  roll  of  his  own  hexameter. 
He  found  his  countrymen  wasting  their  best 
days  in  alternate  dread  and  hope  of  Tartarean 
torments  and  Elysian  raptures,  and  admonished 


44    THE  PRESENT  STATE    OF  THE   SCIENCES. 

them  that  the  truest  and  highest  virtue  would 
scorn  such  selfish  motives,  and  only  look  for 
the  reward  of  duty  in  a  tranquil  enjoyment  of 
the  present  life.  And  that  other  remaining 
terror  of  death  which  was  ever  shading  their 
path  he  strijDped  before  them  into  an  empty 
negation  as  the  mere  loss  of  life,  the  last  atomic 
thrill  Avith  which  to  glide  into  the  passionless 
calm  of  the  gods.  He  lived  about  sixty  years 
before  the  Christian  era.  As  I  have  explained 
to  you,  he  died  in  the  faith  in  which  he  had 
lived,  and  by  his  own  tragic  fate  illustrated  his 
creed  as  he  stood,  in  the  prime  of  life,  at  the 
height  of  his  fame,  about  to  execute  that  pur- 
pose from  which  the  more  irresolute  Hamlet 
quailed :  — 

"  '  And  therefore  now- 
Let  her,  that  is  the  womb  and  tomb  of  all, 
Great  Nature,  take,  and  forcing  far  apart 
Those  blind  beginnings  that  have  made  me  man, 
Dash  them  anew  together  at  her  will 
Through  all  her  cycles.'  ^ 

Now  I  do  not  say,  I  have  not  said,  that  I  adopt 
these  theological  and  ethical  opinions  of  my 
master,  though  they  were  essential  parts  of  his 
system ;  but  if  I  should  lay  them  aside,  as  you 
have  laid  aside  yours,  there  would  then  re- 
main this  mere  hypothesis  before  us  to  be 
tested  like  any  other  by  the  facts.  And  it 
strikes  me  simply  as  a  strong  physical  analogy 

1  Tennyson's  Zwcre/m5. 


THE  PRESENT  STATE  OF   THE  SCIENCES.    45 

which  still  lacks  confirmation.  Let  me  show 
you  how  far  I  might  go  with  you.  You  have 
proved  that  death  may  be  but  the  birth  into 
another  life,  that  there  is  nothing  improbable 
in  a  future  state  into  which  we  may  pass  'just 
as  naturally  as  we  came  into  the  present.'  Sen- 
eca surmised  as  much  when  he  Hkened  those 
who  look  for  a  future  life  to  children  in  the 
womb  preparing  for  this  world.  You  have  also 
projected  into  the  future  new  and  higher  or- 
ganic types  beyond  those  which,  from  the  mol- 
lusk  up  to  man,  have  been  unfolded  in  the  past. 
Such  attempted  prevision  cannot  seem  wholly 
unscientific  to  a  Lucretian,  who  believes  it 
would  have  been  possible  '  from  a  knowledge 
of  the  properties  of  tl\e  molecules  of  the  cosmic 
vapor  to  have  predicted  the  state  of  the  fauna 
of  Britain  in  the  year  1869  with  as  much  cer- 
tainty as  one  can  say  what  Avill  happen  to  the 
vapor  of  the  breath  on  a  cold  winter's  day.'  ^ 
Nor  have  we  any  right  '  to  assume  that  man's 
present  faculties  end  the  series '  which  has  ex- 
tended all  the  way  '  from  the  Iguanodon  and 
his  cotemporaries  to  the  President  and  mem- 
bers of  the  British  Association.'  ^  But  at  this 
point  the  difficulties  begin.  You  have  not  sup- 
plied all  the  intermediate  links  in  your  ideal 
scale  between  our  future  and  our  present  or- 

1  Prof.  Huxley  in  The  Academy  for  1870. 

''i  Prof.  Tyndall's  Address  at  the  British  Association  in  1868. 


46    THE  PRESENT  STATE  OF  THE   SCIENCES. 

ganized  selves.  You  have  not  shown  the  one 
evolvmg  out  of  the  other,  the  higher  out  of  the 
lower.  You  have  not  exhibited  that  coming 
psychical  body  as  originating  among  the  space- 
less atoms  or  punctual  forces  or  plastic  proc- 
esses of  the  present  organism,  nor  exposed  to 
view  the  germination  of  its  peculiar  faculties 
and  powers.  You  have  not  proved  the  capacity 
of  existing  earth  and  man  to  produce  such 
spiritual  bodies.  You  have  not  determined 
whether  the  interval  between  them  and  us  will 
be  brief  or  long ;  whether  they  will  recover 
consciousness  soon  or  late  ;  whether  they  will 
be  developed  slowly  or  in  a  moment.  In  a 
word,  the  evidences  of  such  a  metamorphosis 
cannot  be  gathered  from  the  existing  state  of 
knowledge,  and  if  immediately  forthcoming 
would  appear  little  short  of  miraculous.  Upon 
one  point,  however,  we  are  agreed.  You  con- 
cede to  science  those  rights  of  unrestricted 
search  and  free  discussion  which  have  been  so 
hardly  won  in  '  the  progress  of  learning  and  of 
liberty.'  That  is  all  T  ask.  And  I  beg  to  assure 
you  that  in  the  event  of  any  other  trustworthy 
proofs  of  a  future  state  being  produced,  it 
would  be  no  bar  to  the  theory  even  in  the  view 
of  a  Lucretian,  that  it  should  be  found  coinci- 
dent with  the  Jewish  and  Christian  prejudices 
of  a  right  reverend  prelate  whom  no  one  ad- 
mires more  than  I  do.     On  the  contrary,  to  re- 


THE  PRESENT  STATE  OF   THE   SCIENCES.    47 

ceive  and  act  upon  it,  at  least  as  a  working 
hypothesis,  would  be  but  a  dictate  of  Greek 
wisdom  as  well  as  Roman  virtue." 

LORD    BACON    AS  UMPIRE    BETWEEN   BISHOP 
BUTLER   AND    A   LUCRETIAN. 

Leaving  these  somewhat  prejudiced  oppo- 
nents, let  us  now  turn  to  another  historic 
personage,  accepted  by  them  and  by  us  all 
with  the  concurrent  voice  of  more  than  two 
centuries  of  trial  as  an  umpire,  according  to 
the  stilted  verse  of  Cowley, 

' '  Whom  a  wise  king  and  nature  chose 
Lord  Chancellor  of  both  their  laws." 

Francis  Bacon  was  neither  a  mere  scientist 
nor  a  mere  divine,  but  a  civilian  and  philoso- 
pher who  embraced  within  the  view  of  his 
judicial  intellect  the  most  advanced  science 
and  the  best  divinity  of  his  time.  He  pro- 
jected and  partly  constructed  a  magnificent 
''  Instauration  of  the  Sciences,"  which  was  de- 
signed to  include  all  existing  knowledge,  both 
divine  and  human,  in  one  comprehensive  sys- 
tem. May  we  find  any  decisions  of  this  high 
authority  that  will  bear  upon  the  controversy  ? 

At  one  moment,  indeed,  he  seems  to  lean 
toward  the  side  of  Lucretius.  Having  spoken 
of  a  sensitive  or  produced  soul  which  he  de- 
scribes as  derived  from  the  elements,  and  com- 
mon  to  man  and  the   brutes,  he  urges  more 


48     THE  PRESENT  STATE  OF   THE   SCIENCES. 

diligent  inquiry  into  its  faculties  of  voluntary 
motion  and  sensibility,  and  as  to  its  nature,  dis- 
tinctly allows  it  must  be  material,  "  a  corporeal 
substance,  attenuated  by  heat  and  rendered  in- 
visible, as  a  subtile  breath  or  aura,  of  a  flamy 
and  airy  nature,  diffused  through  the  whole 
body,  but  in  perfect  creatures  residing  chiefly 
in  the  head  and  thence  running  through  the 
nerves,  being  fed  and  recruited  by  the  spir- 
ituous blood  of  the  arteries,  as  Telesius  and  his 
follower  Donius  have  usefully  shown." 

At  another  moment  his  judgment  is  on  the 
side  of  Butler.  Superadding  to  the  sensitive 
or  produced  soul  that  rational  or  inspired  soul 
which  proceeds  from  the  breath  of  God  and  dis- 
tinguishes man  from  the  brutes,  he  concludes 
that  "inquiries  with  relation  to  its  nature,  as 
whether  it  be  native  or  adventitious,  separable 
or  inseparable,  mortal  or  immortal,  how  far  sub- 
ject to  laws  of  matter,  how  far  not,  and  the 
like,  —  though  they  might  be  more  thoroughly 
sifted  in  philosophy  than  hitherto  they  have 
been,  —  in  the  end  must  be  turned  over  to  re- 
ligion for  determination  and  decision ;  since  no 
knowledge  of  the  substance  of  the  rational  soul 
can  be  had  from  philosophy,  but  must  be  de- 
rived from  the  same  divine  inspiration,  whence 
the  substance  thereof  originally  proceeded." 

At  the  same  time,  he  is  careful  to  vindicate 
such  a  method  of  turning  the  scale  by  Scrip- 


THE  PRESENT  STATE   OF  THE   SCIENCES.    49 

tural  authority  as  still  consistent  and  just  to 
both  parties :  "  We  would  not  have  borrowed 
this  division  from  divinity,  had  it  not  also 
agreed  with  philosophy.  For  there  are  many 
excellencies  of  the  human  soul  above  the  souls 
of  brutes,  manifest  even  to  those  who  philoso- 
phize only  according  to  sense.  And  wherever 
so  many  and  such  great  excellencies  are  found, 
a  specific  difference  should  always  be  made. 
We  do  not,  therefore,  approve  that  confused 
and  promiscuous  manner  of  the  philosophers  in 
treating  the  functions  of  the  soul,  as  if  the  soul 
of  man  differed  in  degree  rather  than  species 
from  the  soul  of  brutes,  as  the  sun  differs  from 
the  stars,  or  gold  from  other  metals." 

And  this  is  but  an  example  of  the  general 
manner  in  which  the  great  acknowledged  mas- 
ter of  philosophy  would  treat  that  whole  class  of 
scientific  and  religious  problems  which  we  have 
described  as  connected  with  the  origin,  course, 
and  destiny  of  nature. 

Now,  he  yields  to  science  all  it  can  claim,  as 
he  argues  so  eloquently  that  the  inquiry  for 
final  causes  is  wrongly  placed  in  physics,  and 
hath  made  a  great  devastation  in  that  province  : 
"  And,  therefore,  the  natural  philosophies  of 
Democritus  and  others,  who  allow  no  God  or 
mind  in  the  frame  of  things,  but  attribute  the 
structure  of  the  universe  to  infinite  essays  and 
trials  of  nature,  or  what  they  call  fate  or  for- 


50    THE  PRESENT  STATE   OF   THE   SCIENCES. 

tune,  and  assign  the  causes  of  particular  things 
to  the  necessity  of  matter  without  any  inter- 
mixture of  final  causes,  seem,  so  far  as  we  can 
judge  from  the  remains  of  their  philosophy, 
much  more  solid,  and  to  have  gone  deeper  into 
nature,  with  regard  to  physical  causes,  than  the 
philosophy  of  Aristotle  or  Plato ;  and  this  only 
because  they  never  meddled  with  final  causes, 
which  the  others  were  perpetually  inculcating." 

Again,  he  reserves  for  religion  all  that  it  de- 
mands, while  he  shows  that  final  causes,  when 
kept  where  they  belong  within  the  bounds  of 
theology  and  metaphysics,  are  not  repugnant 
to  physical  causes,  but  agree  excellently  with 
them  as  expressing  the  intentions  of  Provi- 
dence in  the  consequences  of  nature :  "  But 
Democritus  and  Epicurus  when  they  advanced 
their  atoms  were  thus  far  tolerated  by  some, 
but  when  they  asserted  the  fabric  of  all  things 
to  be  raised  by  a  fortuitous  concourse  of  these 
atoms,  without  the  help  of  mind,  they  became 
universally  ridiculous.  So  far  are  jDhysical 
causes  from  drawing  men  off  from  God  and 
Providence,  that  on  the  contrary,  the  philoso- 
phers employed  in  discovering  them  can  find 
no  rest  but  by  flying  to  God  and  Providence  at 
last." 

And  when  we  inquire  how  these  two  adja- 
cent provinces  are  to  be  preserved  and  ad- 
justed, we  may  hear  him  discoursing  of  a  Pri- 


THE  PRESENT  STATE   OF   THE   SCIENCES.    51 

mary  Philosophy,  or  mother  of  all  the  sciences, 
by  whom  they  are  to  be  cherished,  and  around 
whom  their  wrangling  sisterhood  is  to  be  gath- 
ered in  harmony.  His  conception  of  such  a 
philosophy  may  seem  crude  and  vague,  but  not 
more  so  than  might  have  been  expected  in  that 
age.  In  fact  he  is  inclined  to  note  it  as  still 
wanting;  and  in  terms  that  almost  exactly 
describe  the  exigency  upon  us  at  this  hour  : 
"  For  I  find  a  certain  rhapsody  of  natural  the- 
ology, logic,  and  physics,  delivered  in  a  certain 
sublimity  of  discourse,  by  such  as  aim  at  being 
admired  for  standing  on  the  pinnacles  of  the 
sciences;  but  what  we  mean  is,  without  am- 
bition, to  design  some  general  science,  for  the  I  / 
reception  of  axioms,  not  peculiar  to  any  one 
science,  but  common  to  a  number  of  them."  ^ 

THE   UMPIRAGE    OF    PHILOSOPHY. 

The  three  personages  before  us  have  thus 
illustrated  the  classes  to  which  they  respect- 
ively belong,  and  the  interests  which  they 
represent.  Philosophy,  in  the  best  sense  of 
the  word,  is  the  umpire  between  Science  and  ^ 
Keligion.  As  originally  defined  by  Pythagoras 
and  Cicero,  it  is  itself  the  science  of  things 
divine  and  human,  together  with  their  causes. 
As  that  academic  faculty  which  is  complement- 
ary to  the  faculties  of  law,  medicine,  and  theol- 

^  Bacon's  Advancement  of  Learning^  book  iii.,  chap.  4. 


52    THE  PRESENT  STATE   OF    THE   SCIENCES. 

ogy,  it  includes  whatsoever  is  common  to  both 
the  secular  and  sacred  departments  of  learning. 
As  the  science  of  knowledge,  it  aims  to  ascer- 
tain inductively  the  validity,  the  limits  and  the 
functions  of  reason  and  revelation,  the  two  great 
^correlate  factors  of  knowledge.  As  the  science 
of  the  absolute,  so  called  by  the  Germans,  it 
takes  within  its  scope  both  the  finite  and  the  in- 
finite, both  the  knowable  and  the  unknowable, 
for  the  respective  provinces  of  reason  and  rev- 
elation. As  that  summary  universal  science  of 
which  Bacon  speaks,  to  which  all  the  rest  are 
tributary,  it  receives  and  cherishes  impartially 
and  equally  the  discovered  and  the  revealed 
I  bodies  of  knowledge,  that  it  may  organize  them 
Vnto  a  rational  system.  And  finally,  in  the 
jmost  common  and  literal  sense  of  the  word, 
as  the  love  of  wisdom.  Philosophy,  while  in- 
cluding and  fostering  the  scientific  virtues  of 
curiosity,  accuracy,  and  candor  together  with 
the  religious  graces  of  reverence,  humility,  and 
faith,  over  and  above  these  qualities  retains 
others  more  peculiar  to  herself,  such  as  that 
power  of  abstraction,  that  insight  into  reality, 
that  catholicity  of  view,  that  unquenchable  crav- 
ing for  unity  of  truth  and  symmetry  of  knowl- 
edge, which  are  not  so  likely  to  be  practiced 
by  the  mere  scientist  or  the  mere  religionist,  so 
long  as  he  is  immersed  in  his  own  special  re- 
searches, and  which  yet  easily  come  to  them  both 
the  moment  they  step  into  her  wider  sphere. 


THE  PRESENT  STATE   OF   THE  SCIENCES.    53 

It  is  to  be  regretted  that  a  prejudice  should  i^^ 
exist  in  some  minds  against  a  word  of  such 
noble  significance,  and  all  the  more  as  it 
is  only  in  rare  cases  that  its  true  meaning 
would  be  repudiated.  Though  a  few  scien- 
tists and  religionists  may  now  and  then  have 
denounced  philosophy  as  mystical  or  ration- 
alistic, yet  the  great  mass  would  simply  re- 
sent the  imputation  of  being  unphilosophical, 
as  an  insult  to  their  understandings.  There  is 
plainly  a  good  and  valuable  sense  of  the  term 
which  both  parties  spontaneously  unite  in  using, 
and  which  ought  not  to  be  sacrificed  in  any 
mere  logomachy,  so  long  us  we  have  no  better 
word  to  express  it.  If  we  would  characterize  i 
a  lover,  seeker  and  reconciler  of  all  truths,  both  |/ 
natural  and  revealed,  we  must  term  him  a 
philosopher.  If  we  would  describe  that  special 
work  which  is  to  be  done  in  adjusting  the  re- 
lations of  religion  and  science,  in  ascertaining 
and  defending  their  respective  spheres  and  pre- 
rogatives, in  devising  and  applying  logical  rules 
to  their  pending  controversies,  in  sifting  their 
several  portions  of  truth  from  error,  and  com- 
bining them  into  a  harmonious  system  —  we 
can  only  speak  of  all  this  as  a  peculiar  in-  -^ 
tellectual  task  belono-ino-  neither  to  relig-ion 
alone,  nor  to  science  alone,  but  to  their  com- 
mon ally  and  friend,  philosophy. 

Philosophy,   at  least,  is   the   actual,  the  ac- 
cepted umpire.     The  two  parties  have  ever  in 


54    THE  PRESENT  STATE   OF  THE  SCIENCES. 

fact,  even  though  without  concert,  practically 
owned  her  jurisdiction,  a  ad  sought  to  justify 
themselves  to  each  other  in  her  view.  It  has 
been  their  aim  to  show  that  in  being  scientific 
or  religious  they  mean  to  be  also  philosophical, 
to  sacrifice  no  essential  portion  of  the  whole 
truth,  and  do  no  outrage  to  that  common  reason 
without  which  we  can  judge  neither  of  the  evi- 
dence of  religion,  nor  of  the  claims  of  science. 
Instinctively  they  have  appealed  to  her,  in 
every  great  crisis  of  free  thought,  to  guard 
and  vindicate  at  once  the  authority  of  revela- 
tion and  the  rights  of  reason.  And  this  un- 
conscious tribute  has  been  more  than  repaid. 
To  her,  from  the  days  of  Justin,  the  first 
apologist,  ReHgion  largely  owes  its  evidences, 
its  defenses,  its  appliances  ;  to  her,  since  the 
time  of  Aristotle,  the  first  great  logician,  Science 
is  mainly  indebted  for  its  methods,  its  rights, 
its  triumphs  ;  and  at  this  moment,  in  spite  of 
their  conflicting  partisans,  under  her  mild  umpi- 
rage, whatsoever  the  one  can  establish  as  truly 
revealed,  and  the  other  as  actually  discovered, 
will  be  spontaneously  accepted  by  them  both. 

Philosophy,  too,  is  the  only  available  umpire. 
If  we  wished  it  otherwise  we  would  wish  in 
vain.  The  moment  the  two  parties  come  into 
collision,  it  is  found  that  neither  can  impose  its 
own  terms  upon  the  other.  Paramount  as  Re- 
ligion must  be  in  her  own  sphere  with  her  in- 


THE  PRESENT  STATE    OF   THE   SCIENCES   55 

spired  Bible  and  her  illumined  Church,  yet 
scientific  men  will  not  accept  from  mere  re- 
ligionists, as  such,  a  judgment  upon  their  the- 
ories ;  and  paramount  as  Science  must  be  in  her 
own  sphere,  with  her  unerring  methods  and  un- 
questionable facts,  yet  religious  men  will  not  — - 
accept  from  mere  scientists  a  judgment  upon 
their  doctrines.  Neither  party  will  be  acknowl- 
edged as  a  competent  and  disinterested  judge  • 
of  the  questions  in  dispute.  Neither  can  afford 
from  its  own  one-sided  position  a  calm  and  / 
full  survey  of  the  whole  field  of  controversy. 
The  rival  claimants  must  leave  their  different 
spheres,  though  without  sacrificing  them,  and 
for  the  time  at  least  appear  in  some  middle 
outside  province  which  shall  be  equally  re- 
moved from  their  respective  prejudices  and 
temptations,  and  where  the  whole  truth  shall 
be  sought  and  prized  as  truth  alone  ;  and  for 
such  a  province  we  have  no  better  name  than 
philosophy.  If  at  that  only  possible  tribunal 
either  could  prevail  against  the  other,  so  far 
as  we  can  see  (without  some  miraculous  in- 
terposition for  which  we  have  no  right  to  look), 
religion  would  degenerate  into  superstition  and 
science  into  imbecility ;  but  being  there  legit- 
imated and  reconciled,  they  will  join  hands  as 
twin  daughters  of  God  and  lovers  of  man. 

Philosophy,  moreover,  has  become  the '  one 
desirable  umpire.     It  is  best  that  the  two  par- 


56    THE   PRESENT  STATE  OF   THE   SCIENCES. 

ties  should  agree  to  treat  the  mixed  problems 
rising  between  them  as  properly  philosophical, 
rather  than  merely  scientific  or  purely  relig- 
ious. Their  attempts  to  settle  them  apart, 
each  by  its  own  method,  have  brought  upon 
us  overwhelming  evils.  If  the  time  once  was 
when  the  religious  class  was  unfolding  a  whole 
cyclopedia  of  science  out  of  the  Scriptures,  from 
Genesis  to  the  Apocalypse,  as  pure  dogma  and 
mystery  of  faith,  yet  the  time  has  now  come 
when  a  few,  at  least,  in  the  scientific  class  are 
exhibiting  a  new  genesis  and  apocalypse  of  re- 
ligion as  the  sheer  product  of  science  and  specu- 
lation. And  it  is  high  time  —  I  venture  to  say 
in  the  name  of  the  great  body  of  sober  and  fair 
minds  on  both  sides,  who  refuse  to  commit  them- 
selves to  such  wild  extremes  —  that  the  two  an- 
tagonists, on  thus  emerging  from  their  respec- 
tive provinces  into  the  broad  plain  of  philosophy, 
should  learn  to  respect  their  common  rights 
and  interests,  and  not  imagine  that  either  can 
claim  the  whole  field  against  the  other.  It  is 
time  that  the  religionist  should  recognize  be- 
fore him  an  immense  mass  of  discovered  facts, 
theories,  hypotheses  which  are  the  fruit  of  two 
thousand  years  of  research,  which  stand  upon 
foundations  of  proof  that  cannot  be  shaken  and 
are  rising  into  a  superstructure  of  knowledge 
too  vast  even  to  be  conceived.  It  is  time,  too, 
that  the  scientist  should  cease  to  ignore  that 


THE  PRESENT  STATE    OF  THE   SCIENCES.    57 

vast  body  of  truths,  doctrines,  dogmas,  backed 
by  evidences  which  have  been  accumulating 
for  eighteen  centuries  under  the  most  search- 
ing criticism,  which  have  more  than  convinced 
the  great  master  minds  of  the  past,  and  which 
are  mounting  every  hour  with  cumulative  prob- 
ability toward  moral  certainty  itself.  And  when 
at  length  both  parties  meet  face  to  face,  as  i 
they  are  now  meeting,  before  the  final  prob-  \ 
lem  of  the  universe,  it  is  time  for  the  one  to 
admit  that  the  processes  of  creation  have  not 
been  revealed  and  cannot,  by  the  most  exact 
criticism,  the  most  profound  exegesis,  the  most 
systematic  divinity,  ever  be  discerned  in  the 
mere  letter  of  Holy  Scripture,  and  for  the 
other  to  perceive  that  the  theory  of  a  Creator, 
anthropomorphic  as  it  may  appear,  still  keeps 
the  field,  still  satisfies  an  immense  number  of 
scientific  minds,  and  is  not  likely  to  be  aban- 
doned even  by  the  most  advanced  scientists, 
until  something  else  or  something  better  has 
been  offered  in  its  place.  Only  when  they  have 
thus  taken  philosophical  views  of  the  whole 
range  of  knowledge  will  they  cease  their  raids 
upon  each  other's  territory,  and  no  longer 
maintain  hostile  barriers  or  hollow  truces 
within  the  domain  of  truth.  In  the  realm  of 
Philosophy  alone  can  they  meet  and  find  their 
needed  mutual  support,  completion,  and  har- 
mony. 


u^ 


58    THE  PRESENT  STATE   OF   THE  SCIENCES. 

The  reconciliation  of  Science  and  Religion  is 
not  only  a  distinctive  problem  of  Philosophy, 
but  precisely  that  one  chief  problem  by  the 
solution  of  which  her  own  function  is  ex- 
hausted, her  goal  attained,  her  mission  ac- 
complished. In  establishing  the  validity  of 
human  reason,  in  maintaining  the  authority  of 
divine  revelation,  in  logically  combining  them 
as  coordinate  means  of  knowledge  and  pouring 
their  blended  light  upon  all  classes  of  facts, 
she  is  but  fulfilling  that  sublime  ideal  towards 
which  her  followers  from  age  to  age  have  been 
struggling  with  unquenchable  hope  and  courage. 
The  one  last  perfect  Philosophy  is  to  be  sought 
and  can  only  be  found  in  the  demonstrated  har- 
mony of  Science  and  Religion. 

*  THE    TRUE   PHILOSOPHICAL    SPIRIT. 

It  may  be  well  to  say  at  this  point  that  no 
disparagement  of  any  one  of  the  three  in- 
terests, certainly  no  exaltation  of  Science  over 
Religion  or  of  Philosophy  over  either,  is  implied 
in  this  definition  of  their  related  provinces. 
An  umpire  is  but  the  servant  of  the  game  that 
he  watches,  making  neither  the  laws  nor  the 
facts,  but  simply  applying  the  one  to  the  other. 
And  that  only  true  Philosophy  which  seeks  to 
embrace  both  Science  and  Religion  in  their 
normal  relations  must  itself  be  predetermined 
and  limited   by  them.     Any  attempt   of  the 


THE  PRESENT  STATE  OF   THE   SCIENCES.    59 

pliilosophic  spirit  to  intrude  into  their  domains 
with  the  view  of  distorting  scientific  facts  or 
rehgious  truths  for  mere  speculative  purposes, 
can  only  issue  in  confusion  and  evil.  The  so- 
called  philosophies  of  Nature,  such  as  those  of 
Schelling  and  Oken,  which  aim  to  construct 
hypo  the  tically  the  material  universe  without 
full  empirical  research,  as  well  as  the  miscalled 
philosophies  of  religion,  such  as  those  of  Hegel 
and  Comte,  which  seek  to  prejudge  the  powers 
and  relations  of  the  Absolute  Intelligence  re- 
gardless of  its  actual  expressions,  are  alike 
vain  attempts  of  the  mere  reason  to  dispense 
with  experience  and  revelation.  And  the 
would-be  philosophers  who  aspire  to  conciliate 
the  scientific  and  the  religious  spirit  without 
any  practical  acquaintance  with  either  are  only 
sure  to  fall  under  the  contempt  of  both. 

As  little  would  it  follow  from  the  proposed 
definition,  that  the  philosophical  spirit  must 
needs  be  organized  in  some  visible  tribunal, 
issuing  authoritative  decisions.  The  scientific 
spirit  does  not  thus  reach  its  results  through 
any  of  the  mere  institutions  or  associations 
which  embody  and  express  it ;  and  the  re- 
ligious spirit,  though  incorporated  in  churches 
and  councils  and  claiming  the  authority  of  an 
infallible  Scripture,  does  not  command  universal 
agreement.  It  is  the  crowning  misfortune  of 
the  present  crisis,  that  neither  the  disciples  of 


60    THE  PRESENT  STATE   OF   THE  SCIENCES. 

Religion  nor  the  votaries  of  Science  are  united 
in  their  respective  interpretations  of  the  Bible 
and  of  Nature,  but  appear  divided  among  them- 
selves, as  well  as  opposed  to  each  other,  by 
endless  hypotheses  and  dogmas,  throughout 
the  entire  field  of  research.  And  yet,  as  there 
must  still  be  such  a  thing  as  true  science  and 
true  religion  amid  all  the  schools  and  the  sects, 
so  there  may  be  a  true  philosophy  ever  dis- 
criminating and  mediating  between  them  and 
a  hidden  fraternity  of  philosophers  more  or 
less  consciously  striving  to  bring  them  into 
harmony. 

It  seems  scarcely  necessary  to  add  that  there 
can  be  no  invidious  distinction  of  classes  in  the 
pure  democracy  of  intellect.  The  philosophic 
class  is  but  recruited  from  the  scientific  and 
religious  ranks,  and  can  neither  exist  nor 
flourish  without  them.  Any  one  joins  it  who 
pleases,  stays  in  it  as  long  as  he  chooses,  and 
falls  or  rises  by  his  own  merit.  None  need  to 
enter  it  who  feel,  as  at  times  we  all  feel,  that 
life  is  full  enough  of  problems  without  adding 
to  their  number.  Some  may  prefer  to  seclude 
themselves  within  their  own  provinces,  to  which 
they  are  wedded  with  the  zeal  of  a  votary. 
Others  may  make  chance  excursions  beyond 
only  to  return  as  quickly  to  less  debatable 
ground.  Still  others  may  even  accept  conscious 
contradiction   rather   than  open  conflict,  reso- 


THE  PRESENT  STATE  OF   THE   SCIENCES.    61 

lutely  holding  the  sternest  creed  with  the 
strictest  science,  hke  the  great  Faraday,  of 
whose  laboratory  and  oratory  it  has  been  said, 
that  he  never  entered  either  without  shutting 
the  door  of  the  other.  But  the  days  for  such 
a  state  of  parties  seem  to  be  passing  away. 
The  trumpet  of  a  new  campaign  has  been 
sounded.  Combatants  have  been  marshaled 
and  the  lines  are  forming.  When  scientific  and 
religious  bodies  have  already  begun  .to  discuss 
the  same  problems  from  their  opposite  points 
of  view,  there  can  only  be  warfare  or  agree- 
ment. And  in  such  a  crisis,  it  is  easy  to  see 
that  the  honors  are  more  likely  to  go  to  those 
who  are  championing  the  extreme  wings  of 
Philosophy  than  to  any  that  maybe  so  brave  or 
so  rash  as  to  risk  the  cross  fire  between  them. 

AN   ILLUSTRATIVE    PHILOSOPHICAL    SCHEME    FOR 
HARMONIZING    SCIENCE    AND    RELIGION. 

It  may  give  this  discussion  more  definiteness 
and  point,  and  rescue  it  from  any  vague  gen- 
erality otherwise  resting  upon  it,  to  sketch  in 
outline  a  scheme  of  such  philosophical  prin- 
ciples as  have  been  advocated  —  not,  of  course, 
with  any  hope  of  settling  the  problems  before 
us,  still  less  of  issuing  final  rules  for  their  settle- 
ment, but  simply  as  an  illustration  of  the  field 
which  has  been  defined  and  the  work  which  yet 
remains  to  be  performed.     Such  a  scheme,  it 


62    THE  PRESENT  STATE    OF   THE   SCIENCES. 

is  obvious,  will  labor  under  the  great  disad- 
vantage of  appearing  as  a  mere  dry,  abstruse 
statement,  when  viewed  apart  from  the  facts 
and  reasonings  which  support  it. 

If  we  arrange  the  sciences  upon  the  only 
philosophical  principle,  according  to  the  order 
of  facts  in  space  and  time  as  coexistent  and  suc- 
cessive, we  shall  have  a  series,  rising  from  the 
simplest  physical  to  the  most  complex  psj'chical 
phenomena,  and  embracing  both  the  celestial 
and  terrestrial  divisions  of  each  set  of  phenom- 
ena, the  mechanical,  chemical,  and  organical ; 
the  individual,  social,  and  religious.  And  by  still 
further  separating  them  into  abstract  and  con- 
crete groups,  we  shall  get  for  our  working  clas- 
sification that  one  which  has  been  produced  in 
this  paper,  including  in  itself  the  physical  sci- 
ences of  astronomy,  geology,  and  anthropology, 
and  the  psychical  sciences  of  psychology,  so- 
ciology, and  theology.  This  will  be  our  map  of 
science,  spread  out  before  us  with  its  bounded 
provinces  and  its  known  and  unknown  regions. 


Celestial 

and 

Terrestrial. 


Abstract  Sciences. 

Concrete.  Sciences 

'  Religious. 

Theology. 

Social. 

Sociology. 

Individual. 

Psychology. 

Organical. 

Anthropology. 

Chemical. 

Geology. 

Mechanical. 

Astronomy. 

Psychical. 


Physical. 


Assuming,  as   the  result  of  a  course  of  in- 
ductive logic  (which  cannot  here  be  detailerl), 


THE   PRESENT  STATE    OF   THE   SCIENCES.    63 

tliat  reason  and  revelation  are  the  two  great 
factors  of  knowledge,  we  shall  then  have  the 
task  of  devising  the  axioms  or  logical  canons  for 
their  correlation  in  the  different  provinces  of 
research  which  have  been  defined  and  charac- 
terized. They  can  only  be  obtained  by  combined 
reasoning  and  research,  and  will  naturally  fall 
into  three  classes,  according  as  we  study  the 
normal,  the  existing,  and  the  prospective  state 
of  the  sciences. 

The  Normal  State  of  the  Sciences, 

1.  In  each  science  reason  and  revelation  are 
complemental  factors  of  knowledge,  the  former 
discovering  what  the  latter  has  not  revealed 
and  the  latter  revealing  what  the  former  can- 
not discover. 

2.  In  the  ascending  scale  of  the  sciences  the 
province  of  reason  contracts  as  that  of  revela- 
tion expands,  with  the  growing  complexity, 
obscurity,  and  human  importance  of  the  sci- 
ences themselves. 

3.  The  joint  action  of  reason  and  revelation 
throughout  the  sciences  logically  involves  the 
perfectibility  of  knowledge  or  the  indefinite 
expansion  of  science  toward  omniscience. 

The  Existing  State  of  the  Sciences. 
1.  Hypotheses  and  dogmas  are  to  be  formed 
by  the  scientist  and  religionist  independently, 


64    THE  PRESENT  STATE   OF   THE  SCIENCES. 

each   in  his   own   province,   and   by  his   own 
methods. 

2.  Dogmas  within  the  province  of  the  sci- 
entist must  be  tested  in  the  same  manner  as 
his  own  hypotheses;  and  hypotheses  within  the 
province  of  the  rehgionist,  in  the  same  manner 
as  his  own  dogmas. 

3.  Conflicting  hypotheses  and  dogmas  can 
only  be  provisionally  adjusted  by  exhibiting 
the  problem  of  opinion,  according  as  reason  or 
revelation  predominates  in  the  normal  scale  of 
the  sciences. 

The  Prospective  State  of  the  Sciences. 

1.  In  the  progress  of  the  sciences,  conflicting 
hypotheses  and  dogmas,  by  their  own  attritions 
and  mutual  corrections,  pass  into  the  theories 
and  creeds  accepted  by  both  parties. 

2.  This  gradual  conversion  of  the  hypothet- 
ical and  dogmatic  into  the  scientific,  proceeds 
in  the  order  of  the  sciences,  from  one  set  of 
facts  to  another,  from  the  simple  to  the  com- 
plex, from  the  lower  to  the  higher,  from  the 
physical  through  the  psychical  sciences. 

3.  The  historical  goal  of  the  whole  scientific 
process,  ever  to  be  approached  even  if  never 
attained,  is  the  absorption  of  positive  in  ab- 
solute science  or  perfect  knowledge. 


THE  PRESENT  STATE    OF    THE   SCIENCES.    65 


THE  FUTURE  OF  KNOWLEDGE  THUS  HARMONIZED. 

A  glimpse  is  enough  to  show  us  the  vastness 
of  the  theme.  Not  by  any  one  mind,  not  by 
any  one  people,  not  by  any  one  age  can  it  be 
mastered.  It  is  the  mighty  argument  of  suc- 
cessive generations,  proceeding  with  stately 
steps  from  its  premises  in  a  remote  past  toward 
its  conclusions  in  a  distant  future.  If  we  will 
surrender  ourselves  to  it  we  can  see  whither  it 
is  carrying  us,  and  exult  in  the  prospect. 

In  the  view  of  Religion  everything  may  ap- 
pear miraculous  ;  in  the  view  of  Science  every- 
thing may  appear  natural ;  while  in  the  view 
of  Philosophy  both  will  only  appear  more  and 
more  consistent  aspects  of  one  and  the  same 
reality.  Let  Science,  if  it  can,  resolve  the 
whole  course  of  nature  into  one  continuous 
process  of  correlate  forces ;  let  Keligion,  if  it 
must,  exhibit  that  course  of  nature  as  one 
dazzling  series  of  miracles ;  a  true  Philosophy 
will  yet  behold  them  blending  together  as  but 
the  sure  logic  and  even  pulse  of  one  Almighty 
Mind,  ever  reasoning  through  the  whole  crea- 
tion, and  flushing  with  life  all  creatures. 

As  yet,  indeed,  to  us  who  can  see  but  a 
speck,  a  span,  of  the  two  vast  coinciding 
spheres,  they  must  seem  confused,  dark  and  of- 
ten contradictory.  But  "  there  may  be  beings 
in  the  universe,  whose  capacities  and  knowl- 

5 


66    THE  PRESENT  STATE   OF  THE  SCIENCES. 

edge  and  views  may  be  so  extensive  as  that 
the  whole  Christian  dispensation  may  to  them 
appear  natural ;  as  natural  as  the  visible  known 
course  of  things  appears  to  us."  Be  that  as  it 
may,  if  we  will  read  the  future  as  we  can  read 
the  past,  it  will  not  seem  incredible  that  the 
most  extreme  investigators  are  now  but  grop- 
ing through  the  darkness  toward  some  central 
point  where,  at  length,  they  shall  meet  as  in 
a  focus  of  light.  Only,  we  may  be  sure,  they 
will  meet  there,  not  like  those  two  rash  knights 
at  their  first  encounter,  not  like  those  eager 
champions  who  are  now  filling  the  air  with 
challenges  and  criminations,  but  rather  like  ex- 
hausted and  bleeding  warriors,  after  having 
fought  their  way  into  a  recognition  of  each 
other's  truth  and  virtue,  to  clasp  hands  as  friends 
who  had  but  mistaken  themselves  for  foes. 


SYNOPSIS.  67 


SYNOPSIS. 

Historical    Origin    op    the    Schism   between    Re- 
ligion AND  Science. 

Consequent  Existing  State  of  the  Sciences  : 
Numerous  Unsolved  Problems  ; 
Scientific  Hypotheses  and  Religious  Dogmas. 
Problems    in    Astronomy,    with    Hypotheses    and 
Dogmas : 

Primitive  Evolution  of  Suns  and  Planets  ; 
Instantaneous   Creation   of  the    Heavens. 
Plurality  of  Uninhabited  Worlds  ; 
Hierarchy  of  tlie  Heavenly  Hosts. 
Ultimate  Dissolution  of  Planets  and  Suns  ; 
Miraculous  Renewal  of  the  Heavens  and  Earth. 
Problems  in  Geology,  with  Hypotheses  and  Dog- 
mas : 

Secular  Formation  of  Strata,  Floras,  and  Faunas ; 
Successive  Creations  in  Six  Days. 
Ultimate  Cooling  of  the  Globe  ; 
Predicted  Renovation  by  Fire. 
Periodic  Changes  of  Climate  and  Species  ; 
j  Judgments  of  the  Deluge  and  the  Conflagration. 
Problems  in  Anthropology,  with  Hypotheses  and 
Dogmas : 

Development  of  Animal  into  Human  Species  ; 
Creation  of  Adam  in  the  Divine  Imasre. 
Gradual  Rise  of  Races,  Languages,  and  Arts  ; 
Miraculous  Confusion  and  Dispersion  at  Babel. 
Physical  Decline  of  the  Future  Human  Race ; 
Predicted  Renewal  of  Man  with  the  Earth. 
Problems  in  the  Psychical  Sciences  :  Psychology, 
Sociology,  AND  Theology: 

Production  and  Dissolution  of  the  Mind ; 
Creation  and  Regeneration  of  the  Soul. 


68  SYNOPSIS. 

Natural  Growth  and  Decay  of  Societies ; 
Supernatural  Career  of  the  Church. 
Progressive  Scale  of  Natural  Religions  ; 
Predicted  Triumph  of  Revealed  Religion. 
Problems  in  Metaphysical  Science  : 

Phenomenal  Nature  of  Mind  and  Matter  ; 
Pre-ordained  Harmony  of  Soul  and  Body. 

{Development  of  the  World  from  Absolute  Reason 
and  Force  ; 
Creation    of   the  World    by  the    Father  through 
the  Son. 
Problems  in  the  Science  of  the  Sciences  : 

(  Destruction  of  Theology  by  Positive  Science ; 
j  Rectification  of  Science  by  a  Divine  Revelation. 
The  Goal  of  Science  in  Absolute  Nescience  ; 
The  Beatific  Vision  and  New  Apocalypse. 
Philosophical  Nature  of  all  these  Problems  : 
They  are  not  exclusively  Scientific ; 
They  are  not  exclusively  Religious  ; 
They  are  partly  Scientific  and  partly  Religious. 
Professor  Tyndall's  Illustration  of  one  of  these 
Problems  ; 

Renewed  Argument  of  Bishop  Butler  ; 
Rejoinder  of  a  Lucretian; 
Lord  Bacon  as  Umpire. 
The  Umpirage  of  Philosophy  between  Science  and 
Religion. 

Definition  of  Philosophy  ; 
Philosophy  the  Accepted  Umpire  ; 
Philosophy  the  only  Available  Umpire  ; 
Philosophy  the  one  Desirable  Umpire. 
The  Final  Philosophy  to  be  sought  in  the  Logi- 
cal Reconciliation  of  Science  and  Religion. 
The  True  Philosophical  Spirit  : 

It  intrudes  neither  into  Science  nor  into  Religion  ; 
It  mediates  by  no  mere  visible  Authority  ; 
It   is   itself    only  recruited  from    the  ranks    of  both 
Science  and  Religion. 


SYNOPSIS.  69 

A  Philosophical  Scheme  for  Harmonizing  Science 
AND  Revealed  Religion; 

The  Sciences  inductively  Classified. 

The  Normal  State  of  the  Sciences. 

The  Existing  State  of  the  Sciences. 

The  Prospective  State  of  the  Sciences. 
The  Future  of  Knowledge  thus  Harmonized. 


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the  history  of  a  nation  subordinate  to  this  more  general  idea.  No  attempt 
will  be  made  to  recount  all  the  events  of  any  given  period.  The  aim  will  be 
to  bring  out  in  the  clearest  light  the  salient  incidents  and  features  of  each 
epoch.  Special  attention  will  be  paid  to  the  literature,  manners,  state  of 
knowledge,  and  all  those  characteristics  which  exhibit  the  life  of  a  people  as 
well  as  the  policy  of  their  rulers  during  any  period.  To  make  the  text  more 
readily  intelligible,  outline  maps  will  be  given  with  each  volume,  and  where 
this  arrangement  is  desirable  they  will  be  distributed  throughout  the  text  so 
as  to  be  more  easy  of  reference.  A  series  of  works  based  upon  this  general 
plan  can  not  fail  to  be  widely  useful  in  popularizing  history  as  science  has 
lately  been  popularized.  Those  who  have  been  discouraged  from  attempting 
more  ambitious  works  because  of  their  magnitude,  will  naturally  turn  to 
these  Epochs  of  History  to  get  a  general  knowledge  of  any  period;  students 
may  use  them  to  great  advantage  in  refreshing  their  memories  and  in  keeping 
the  true  perspective  of  events,  and  in  schools  they  will  be  of  immense  service 
as  text  books, — a  point  which  shall  be  kept  constantly  in  view  in  their  pre- 
paration. 

THE  FOLLOWING   VOLUMES  ARE  NOW  READY: 

THE  ERA  OF  THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION.     By  F.  Seeboiim,  Author  of 

"  The  Oxford  Reformers — Colet,  Erasmus,  More,"  with  appendi.x  by  P-of.  Geo.  P. 

Fisher,  of  Yale  College.     Author  of  "  HISTORY  OF  THE  REFORMATION." 
The  CRUSADES.     By  Rev.  G.  W.  Cox,  M.A  ,  Author  of  the  "  History  of  Greece." 
The  THIRTY  YEARS'  WAR,  1618-1648.     By  Samuel  Rawson  Gardiner. 
THE  HOUSES  OF  LANCASTER  AND  YORK;  with  the  CONQUEST  and  LOSS 

of  FRANCE.     By  James  Gaikdnek  of  the  Public  Record  Office.     Now  ready. 
THE   FRENCH    REVOLUTION   AND   FIRST   EMPIRE:   an  Historical  Sketch. 

By  William  O'Connor  Morris,  with  an  appendix  by  Hon,  Andrew  D.  White, 

President  of  Cornell  University. 

9^  Copies  sent  post-paid,  on  receipt  of  price,  by  the  Publishtrt, 


DATE  DUE 

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H'^J 

Ife^'^ 

DEMCO  38-297 


